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S E R M b*N S 




PREACHED IN 



ENGLAND, 



BY THE LATE RIGHT REVEREND 

REGINALD HEBER, D.D. 

LORD BISHOP OF CALCUTTA ; 

FORMERLY RECTOR OP HODNET, SALOP; PREBENDARY OP ST. ASAPH,* AND 
PREACHER AT LINCOLN'S INN. 



NEW-YORK: 

SOLD BY E. BLISS; C. S. FRANCIS; WHITE, GALLAHER & WHITE; 
COLLINS & CO. ; COLLINS & HANNAY ; D. FELT; O. A. ROORBACK ;; 
N. B. HOLMES; W. B. GILLEY; G. & C. & H. CARVILL; T. & J. 
SWORDS. 

PHILADELPHIA—TOW AR & HOGAN ; T. DE SILVER; J. GRIGG.— »= 
BALTIMORE-W. & J. NEAL. BOSTON-RICHARDSON & LORD. 



1829. 







VPrir 



J. SEYMOUR, 

ClI™nTvAN NORDEN, >Printersand Publishers fortLeTradc. 

H. C. SLEIGHT, ) 

Orders addressed to E. B. CLAYTON, New-York. 



TO 



SIR ROBERT HARRY INGLIS, BART. MP. 



I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME, 



AS A TOKEN OF GRATITUDE FOR THE AiTECTlOK 



SHOWN TO MY HUSBANED^S MEMORYj 



BY THE KIND AND JUDICIOUS ASSISTANCE 



HE HAS AFFORDED ME IN THE PUBLICATION OP HIS WORKS* 



AMELIA HEBER. 



Bodryddan^ St. Asaph 
Dec. 31,1828. 



PREFACE 



Several of the sermons now offered to the pubhc 
were prepared by then* Author for pubUcation, and 
the remainder are considered as so far fitted for 
the press, as to be entitled to admission in the 
same series. 

This volume will shortly be followed by a dis- 
tinct work, containing sermons preached in India; 
and the Editor hopes, at some future period, to 
print a selection from the parochial sermons 
preached by her husband at Hodnet. 



PREFACE 



3Y THE 



AMERICAN PUBLISHERS, 



This edition of the "Sermons of Bishop Heber 
preached in England," is respectfully presented by 
the American Publishers to the Hterary and reli- 
gious community. It has been executed with 
great care, page for page with the London edition, 
and it is beheved that it will be found Httle inferior 
to that as respects the quality of paper and the 
style of printing. No expense has been spared; 
for the object of the Publishers was not so much 
pecuniary profit, as to evince the respect with 
which the character of the late Bishop of Calcutta 
is viewed in this country. Few individuals of 
the present age, born and nurtured and perform- 
ing their important functions at so great a distance 
from us, have ever excited such warm or such 
.2[eneral interest in their favour. He was indeed a 



VI FREFACE BY THE AMERICAN PUBLISHERS. 

scholar, and the republic of letters extends over 
the whole surface of the globe — he was a poet, 
and increased the literary treasures of a language 
which is also our mother tongue; but more than 
all, he was prominent in a cause which breaks 
down all barriers of distinction between men, and 
unites those who are engaged in it, in bonds of the 
most affectionate brotherhood. A devoted friend 
to the cause of missions, during his whole profes- 
sional life, and at last a voluntary martyr to that 
sacred cause, it was in this character he excited 
our deepest interest, and in contemplating it with 
admiration and respect, his elegant attainments, 
his extensive learning, and poetical inspiration, 
were comparatively unobserved. Now however 
his various excellences have been placed before us 
in a strong light, and in him we see and acknow- 
ledge, " splendid talents, profound learning, culti- 
vated taste, poetic imagination, the lovehness 
of domestic virtue, saintly piety, and apostoHc 
zeal, combining together to form a character 
almost perfect." 

All these estimable qualities are amply illustrated 
in his " Journal in India," — a work too well known 
and too highly estimated to need commendation, 
and one that will make all who have read it, desi- 



PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN PUBLISHERS. Vll 

rous of perusing whatever else may be presented 
to the pubHc from the same source. 

The American Pubhshers have been anxious to 
gratify this curiosity by the early publication of the 
present volume. The Sermons it contains, as will 
be seen by the English preface, were in part pre- 
pared for publication by the lamented author. The 
others were selected by the editor — his widow, — 
of whom it will be acknowledged, that as she is 
more deeply interested in his fame than any other 
person can be, so has she proved by the past exe- 
cution of her editorial duties, that there are few 
more competent than herself to extend and esta- 
blish^this^ fame, both by the ^publication of his 
remaining works, and by the Memoir^of his life 
which is promised. The Sermons preached by 
Bishop Heber^whilejn India, andalso a" selection 
from the parochial sermons at Hodnet, are an- 
nounced in^the^preface to the present work. We 
anxiously look forward for the reception of these 
volumes, and particularlythe latter. The^clear'and 
forcible exhibitions of scripture truth, the earnest 
appeals to the conscience, and the affectionate ex- 
hortations of such a man as Heber in the discharge 
of his duties as pastor of a beloved flock, must 
possess deep interest, and be calculated for exten- 



Vlll PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN PUBLISHERS. 

sive usefulness. The Sermons in the present vol 
ume, although by no means deficient in the above 
qualities, nay, on the contrary, distinguished for 
the union of practical reflection and exhortation, 
with ingenious and learned disquisition ; yet being 
prepared for public occasions and delivered princi- 
pally before learned bodies, are less adapted to 
universal perusal than parochial sermons would be. 
To the man of letters, and the theologian especially, 
the present work will prove a valuable acquisition, 
and the Publishers have great satisfaction in thus 
presenting it to their notice. 



New-York, June, 1829. 



CONTENTS- 



SERMON I. 

TIME AND ETERNITY. 

[Preached at Lincoln's Inn, 1823, and at Madras, 
March 4, 1826.] 

2 Cor. iv. 18. 

PAGli 

We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things 
which are not seen ; for the things which are seen are 
temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal . . 1 

SERMON II. 

ON THE PRESENCE OF GOOD ANGELS. 

[Preached before the University of Oxford, 1818, and at 
Lincoln's Inn, Jan. 1822.] 

2 Kings vi. 16. 

Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they which 
be with them 18 

SERMON III. 

ON THE MINISTRY OF GOOD ANGELS. 

[Preached before the University of Oxford, 1818, and at 
Lincoln's Inn, 1822.] 

2 Kings vi. 16. 

Fear not, for they that be with us, are more than they w^hich 
be with them 42 

SERMON IV. 

ON THE EXISTENCE AND INFLUENCE OF E^^L SPIRITS. 

[Preached before the University at Oxford, 1818, and at 
Lincoln's Inn, 1822.] 

Ephes. vi. 11, 12. 

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to 
stand against the wiles of the Devil. For we wrestle 
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, 
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this 
world, against spiritual wickedness in high places 64 

b 



vi CONTENTS. 

SERMON V. 

ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 

[Preached at Lincoln's Inn, November 10, 1822.] 
Exodus iii. 14. 

PAGE 

And God said unto Moses, I am that I am ; and He said, 
Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am 
hath sent me unto you 102 

SERMON VI. 

character OF moses. 

[Preached at Lincoln Inn, Nov. 17, 1822.] 

Exodus iii. 14. 

And God said unto Moses, I am that I am ; and He said. 
Thus shalt thou say unto the* children of Israel, I am 
hath sent me unto you 124 

SERMON VII. 

god's dealings with PHARAOH. 

[Preached before the University of Oxford, 1818.] 

Exodus ix. 16. 

In very deed for this cause I have raised thee up, for to 
show in thee my power, and that my name may be de- 
clared throughout all the earth 146 

SERMON VIIL 

ON THE decrees OF GOD. 

[Preached in the Cathedral of St. Asaph, 1819.] 

St. Luke xix. 42. 

If thou liadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, 
the thino;s which belong unto thy peace ! But now they 
are hid from liiinc eyes ... , 167 

SERMON IX. 

THE EXTENSION OF CHRISt's KINGDOM. 

[For the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 
Preached at Shrewsbury, 1821.] 

Daxiel xii. 3. 
And they that be wise sliall shine as the brightness of the 
firmament, and they thai turn many to righteousness as 
the stars for ever and ever 189 



CONTENTS. vii 

SERMON X. 

THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN, 

[Preached for the Church Missionary Society, at Whittington, 
Salop, April 16, 1820.] 

St. Matt. vi. 10. 

PAGE 

Thy kingdom come 193 

SERMON XL 

THE DISPERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

[Preached for the British and Foreign Bible Society, at 
Shrewsbury, September 5, 1813.] 

Rev. xiv. 6. 
I saw another Angel fly in the midst of Heaven, having the 
everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell in the 
earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and 
people 211 

SERMON XII. 

THE DUTIES OF THE MINISTRY. 

[Preached at Chester, 1819.] 
St. Matt. ix. 38. 
Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will 
send forth labourers into his harvest 232 

SERMON XIII. 

THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THE POOR. 

[Preached before the Society for Promoting Christian Know- 
ledge, at St. Paul's Cathedral, June, 1823. 

St. Luke vii. 22. 
To the poor the Gospel is preached 255 

SERMON XIV. 

RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 

[Preached at the Assizes at Shrewsbury, 1821.] 
Jeremiah xxxv. 18, 19. 
Because ye have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab 
your father, and kept all his precepts, and done accord- 
ing unto all that he hath commanded you, therefore thus 
saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel ; Jonadab the 
son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me 
for ever *. , 275 



viii CONTENTS. 

SERMON XV. 

THE SHIPWRECK OF ST. PAUL. 

[Preached at Lincoln's Inn, 1822, and at Madras, 12th March, 

1826.] 

Acts xxvii. 23, 24. 

There stood by me this night the Angel of God, whose I 
am, and whom I serve, saying. Fear not, Paul ; thou 
must be brought before Caesar : and, lo, God hath given 
thee all them that sail with thee 298 

SERMON XVI. 

THE FEAR OF DEATH. 

[Preached before the University of Oxford, 1818; at Lincoln's 
Inn, 1822 ; and at Madras, 1826.] 

Phil. i. 21. 
To die is gain 320 

SERMON XVII. 

THE FEAR OF DEATH. 

[Preached before the University of Oxford, May 3, 1818; Lin- 
coln's Inn, May 5, 1822; and Madras, Feb. 26, 1826.] 

Phil. i. 21. 
To die is gain 335 

SERMON XVIII. 

ON THE ATONEMENT. 

[Preached before the University of Oxford, 1818, and at 
Cuddalore, 1826.] 

Romans vi. 3, 4. 

Know yc not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus 
Christ, were baptized into his death ? Therefore we are 
buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ 
was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, 
even so we also should walk in newness of life 352 

SERMON XIX. 

ON THE ATONEMENT. 

[Preached at Lincoln's Inn, May 1823.] 

CoLoss. iii. 3. 

Yc arc dead, and vour life is hid with Christ in God 375 



SERMON I. 



TIME AND ETERNITY. 

[Preached at Lincoln's Inn, 1823, and at Madras, March 4, 1826.] 



2 Cor. iv. 18. 

We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things 
which are not seen ; for the things which are seen are tem- 
poral, hut the things which are not seen are eternal. 

There is an ancient fable told by the Greek and 
Roman Churches, which, fable as it is, may for its 
beauty and singularity well deserve to be remem- 
bered, that in one of the earliest persecutions to 
which the Christian world was exposed, seven 
Christian youths sought concealment in a lonely 
cave, and there, by God's appointment, fell into a 
deep and death-like slumber. They slept, the le- 
gend runs, two hundred years, till the greater part 
of mankind had received the faith of the Gospel, 
and that Church which they had left a poor and af- 
flicted orphan, had "kings" for her "nursing fath- 
ers, and queens " for her " nursing mothers."* They 
then at length aAVoke, and entering into their native 
Ephesus, so altered now that its streets were alto- 
gether unknown to them, they cautiously inquired 
if there were any Christians in the city ? " Chris- 

* Isaiah xlix. 23. 
VOL. I. B 



2 SERMON L 

tians !" was the answer, " we are all ChristiaiiiS 
here!" and they heard with a thankful joy the 
change which, since they left the world, had taken 
place in the opinions of its inhabitants. On one 
side they were shown a stately fabric adorned with 
a gilded cross, and dedicated, as they were told, to 
the worship of their crucified Master ; on another, 
schools for the public exposition of those Gospels, 
of which so short a time before, the bare profession 
was proscribed and deadly. But no fear was now 
to be entertained of those miseries which had en- 
circled the cradle of Christianity ; no danger now 
of the rack, the lions, or the sword ; the emperor 
and his prefects held the same faith with them- 
selves, and all the wealth of the east, and all the 
valour and authority of the western world were 
exerted to protect and endow the professors and 
the teachers of their rehgion. 

But joyful as these tidings must, at first, have 
been, their further inquiries are said to have met 
with answers which very deeply surprised and 
pained them. They learned that the greater part 
of those who called themselves by the name of 
Christ, were strangely regardless of the blessings 
which Christ had bestowed, and of the obligations 
which He had laid on His followers. They found 
that, as the world had become Christian, Christian- 
ity itself had become worldly ; and wearied and 
sorrowful they besought of God to lay them asleep 
again, crying out to those who followed them, "you 
have shewn us many heathens who have given up 



TIME AND ETERNITY. 3 

their old idolatry without gaining any thing better 
in its room ; many who are of no religion at all ; and 
many with whom the rehgion of Christ is no more 
than a cloak of hcentiousness; but where, where 
are the christians ?" And thus they returned to 
their cave; and there God had compassion on 
them, releasing them, once for all, from that world 
for whose reproof their days had been lengthened, 
and removing their souls to the society of their an- 
cient friends and pastors, the martyrs and saints of 
an earlier and a better generation. 

The admiration of former times is a feeling at 
first, perhaps engrafted on our minds by the regrets 
of those who vainly seek in the evening of life, for 
the sunny tints which adorned their morning land- 
scape ; and who are led to fancy a deterioration in 
surrounding objects, when the change is in them- 
selves, and the twilight in their own powers of per- 
ception. It is probable that, as each age of the 
individual or the species is subject to its peculiar 
dangers, so each has its peculiar and compen- 
sating advantages : and that the difficulties which, 
at different periods of the world's duration, have 
impeded the behever's progress to Heaven, though 
in appearance infinitely various, are, in amount, 
very nearly equal. It is probable that no age 
is without its sufficient share of offences, of 
judgments, of graces, and of mercies, and that the 
corrupted nature of mankind was never otherwise 
than hostile or indifferent to the means which God 
has employed to remedy its misery. Had we lived 



4 SERMON I. 

in the times of the infant Church, even amid the 
blaze of miracle on the one hand, and the chasten- 
ing fires of persecution on the other, we should 
have heard, perhaps, no fewer complaints of the 
cowardice and apostacy,the dissimulation and mur- 
muring inseparable from a continuance of public 
distress and danger, than we now hear regrets for 
those days of wholesome affliction, when the mutual 
love of behevers was strengthened by their common 
danger ; when their want of worldly advantages 
disposed them to regard a release from the world 
with hope far more than with apprehension, and 
compelled the Church to cling to her Master's 
cross alone for comfort and for succour. 

Still, however, it is most wonderful, yea rather by 
this very consideration is our wonder increased at 
the circumstance, that in any or every age of Chris- 
tianity such inducements and such menaces as the 
rehgion of Christ displays, should be regarded with 
so much indifference, and postponed for objects so 
trifling and comparatively worthless. If there were 
no other diflerence but that of duration between 
the happiness of the present life and of the hfe 
which is to follow, or though it were allowed us to 
believe that the enjoyments of earth were, in every 
other respect, the greater and more desirable of the 
two, this single consideration of its eternity would 
prove the wisdom of making Heaven the object of 
our most earnest care and concern ; of retaining 
its image constantly in our minds ; of applying our- 
selves with a more excellent zeal to every thing 



TIME AND ETERNITY. 5 

which can help us in its attainment, and of esteem- 
ing all things as less than worthless which are set 
in comparison with its claims, or which stand in the 
way of its purchase. 

Accordingly, this is the motive which St. Paul 
assigns for a contempt of the sufferings and plea- 
sures, the hopes and fears, of the Ufe which now is, 
in comparison with the pleasures and sufferings, 
the fears and hopes, which are, in another life, held 
out to each of us. And it is a reason which must 
carry great weight to the mind of every reasonable 
being, inasmuch as any thing which may end soon, 
and must end some time or other, is, supposing all 
other circumstances equal, or even allowing to the 
temporal good a very large preponderance of plea- 
sure, of exceedingly less value than that which, 
once attained, is alike safe from accident and decay, 
the enjoyment of which is neither to be checked 
by insecurity, nor palled by long possession, but 
which must continue thenceforth in everlasting 
and incorruptible blessedness, as surely as God 
Himself is incorruptible and everlasting. But when, 
besides this great and preponderating considera- 
tion, we recollect the hollow and unsatisfactory 
nature of all the enjoyments and advantages which 
the present life can supply ; when we recollect how 
small a share of those enjoyments the generality of 
mankind can hope for, and that those men who 
have seemed to fare most plentifully at the feast of 
worldly happiness, have yet, by their own acknow- 
ledgments, arisen from that feast unsatisfied and 



SERMON 1. 

disappointed ; when we recollect and feel, as we 
may most of us have felt but too keenly, that these 
pleasures, short and imperfect as they are, are 
dashed and mingled with many inevitable sorrows, 
and when we recollect, above all, that there is no- 
thing in our care of the everlasting world which 
necessarily or usually interferes with the moderate 
enjoyment of those short-lived comforts which the 
present world can supply, it must needs excite no 
common degree of wonder and pity for the mad- 
ness of mankind, to behold them so over-anxious 
and over-busy in their pursuit of the less and less 
enduring advantages, and so strangely careless and 
inactive in their endeavours after those glories which 
abide eternally. 

It is plain, when so many reasonable beings in 
this one instance act unreasonably, that some pow- 
erful and prevalent causes must be at work to pre- 
vent or pervert the fair exercise of their under- 
standings ; and it is evidently most desirable and 
necessary to discover and remove the delusions 
which hide from our eyes the things belonging to 
our peace, which disquahfy our spirits from the 
discernment of spiritual interests, and render our 
hearts unmoved to any good or effectual purpose 
by the most gracious promises or the most awful 
threatcnings of the Almighty. To point out then 
the causes and, under Divine Grace, the most pro- 
bable cure of this remarkable confusion of intellect, 
will be the object of the observations which I shall 
now sufi^gest to yon. ^^ 



TIME AND ETERNITY. 7 

Of these causes, a want of faith is the most ob- 
vious, as it is one, I apprehend, of the most fre- 
quent, and, of all others, where it prevails, the 
most fatal. It is impossible that we should please 
God ', it is impossible that we should even desire to 
please Him, unless we are first assured that He is^ 
and that He is a rewarder of all such as diligently 
seek Him. It is impossible that we should come 
to Christ, as Christ requires, with an entire and 
exclusive confidence in His merits, with a hearty 
and lively thankfulness for His mercies, with an 
earnest and effectual desire to offer up ourselves, 
our souls, and bodies, to His reasonable and holy 
service, unless we are first really persuaded that 
the Gospel contains the words of God, and that the 
things are true, and that the objects are answered, 
which the Lord Jesus is there recorded to have 
done, and suffered, and undertaken, and purchased 
for us. It is impossible, lastly, that we should re- 
sist the many and mighty temptations with which 
our spiritual adversary assails us, unless we are 
convinced of the truth and reasonableness of those 
passages in the Gospels, the epistles, and the pro- 
phecies, which declare a comphance with his en- 
ticements to be a state of enmity with the Most 
High, and which compare, as in the words of my 
text St. Paul has done, the short continuance and 
minor importance of such sufferings or pleasures as 
this life can inflict or bestow, with the wrath of 
Him who, when He hath killed, hath power to cast 
into hell. 



S SERMON 1. 

It is in vain to urge, as the ancient teachers of 
morahty were in their ignorance content to do, 
that the guilty pleasures of this life are so short 
and so poor as to be unworthy of a wise man's de- 
sire, unless we are, in the first place, talking to 
those who profess the name of wisdom, or unless 
we can first prove to each individual that, by re- 
fusing such pleasures, he will get something more 
than the barren praise of being wise. It is of little 
avail to press on his notice that, by these indul- 
gences or pursuits, he renounces the far greater en- 
joyment of a pure and speculative philosophy, when 
the sensuaUst or the ambitious man, (and nine 
tenths of the world are naturally either ambitious 
or sensual) may reply that, of wordly gratifications, 
he takes those which please him best. Nor is it 
sufficient to point out to his notice the lassitude and 
disease, the remorse and the danger to which an 
unbridled indulgence of his criminal desires must, 
even in this life, expose him. His answer is easy ; 
that he knows how to stop in time ; that others who 
have gone as far in vice as he designs to go, have 
nevertheless escaped the worst of those penal con- 
sequences with which we menace him ; or that he 
is aware he is shortening his days, and means, there- 
fore, to make the most of the days which yet remain 
to him. 

I do not forget, and still less am I inclined for 
the sake of temporary argument, to suppress my 
conviction that, even in this life, the cup of the 
sinner is usually full of bitterness ; and that of this 



TIME AND ETERNITY. H 

world, separately considered, the virtuous and the 
wise have the best and fairest portion. But I am 
convinced that, where the advantages and disadvan- 
tages held out on both sides are ahke only for a 
time, the present short-hved enjoyment will gene- 
rally preponderate over the future short-hved pain ; 
and that we must first persuade the smner that the 
things which are not seen, both are^ and are eternal^ 
before he is likely to forego those temporal and 
unholy, but powerfully seductive pleasures, which, 
at every step, ensnare his eyes and confuse his un- 
derstanding. 

But as a want of faith is thus fatal to all good- 
ness ; so is it a deficiency far more fi-equent among 
men than a careless observer would imagine. I do 
not mean that many are to be found so fearfully 
abandoned to themselves and to Satan as to main- 
tain, either with their mouths or in their hearts, that 
there is no God. I do not mean that in a Chris- 
tian land, and among those who, from their child- 
hood, have been surrounded with the evidences of 
the truth, and with the association and example of 
all which is good, or great, or holy, the number 
is considerable of those who expressly deny the 
Lord who bought them. But this I do mean, and 
this is unhappily proved true both by reason and 
experience, that there is a great difference between 
not disbelieving what is related in Scripture con- 
cerning God and His Son, and actually and habitu- 
ally beheving it ; and that many a man has no ge- 
nuine faith who never in his life either denied or 

VOL. I. C 



10 SERMON 1. 

doubted the Gospel. Believing, it should be recol- 
lected, is an act of the mind consequent to atten- 
tion. We cannot believe that which is not present 
to our thoughts ; we cannot have an habitual faith 
in God, without habitually retaining His image in 
our minds as the object of our love and reverence. 
And when we consider how many men there are 
who, to all outward appearance, never think of God 
or His Son at all; and how many more who endea- 
vour to get rid of religious thoughts whenever they 
arise as unnecessary, untimely, and troublesome ; 
we must allow, I think, that a want of faith is at 
the bottom of the wicked lives of many professing 
Christians ; that some who, when the Gospel is 
named to them, are very far from doubting its truth, 
are yet, during the greatest part of their lives, to all 
practical purposes, unbelievers ; while others who, 
from time to time, may perhaps believe and trem- 
ble, are anxious to make still less the little faith 
which yet lingers in their bosoms. To these men 
a voice of most awful warning is necessary. They 
should be reminded that the Christian religion 
must, inevitably, be either false or true ; that its 
falsehood or truth is a question of infinite concern- 
ment to them ; that the things which are not seen? 
if such things there really are, are eternal, and that 
either the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a fraud, and the 
best and wisest men of all ages since His death have 
been the dupes of a wild imposture ; or else, if it be 
true, that their lives cannot be right, that their feet 
are treading the downward wav, and their end will 



TIME AND ETERNITY. 11 

be ruin irretrievable. They should be warned, that 
not only are sinners of a more enormous guilt and 
a deeper defilement to " be turned into hell," but 
that " the people who forget God,"* are to find a 
proportionate share in those menaced sufferings ; 
and they should be urged, for the sake of their pre- 
sent comfort here, if not for the sake of their ever- 
lasting happiness hereafter, to study the Gospel of 
Christ and the evidences of His rehgion, and to a^k 
of God to guide their inquiries aright, and to pre- 
serve in their minds evermore the conviction to 
which those inquiries will lead them. It is thus, 
and thus only, by a diligent examination of the 
Scriptures, and by a diligent use of the appointed 
means of improvement and of grace, that the avow- 
ed and the practical unbeliever may be alike ena- 
bled to overlook " the things which are seen and 
are temporal," and to fix a due share of his atten- 
tion on " the things which are not seen and are 
eternal." 

Another and perhaps a still more common cause 
of this indifference to eternal things, and this per- 
verseness of intellect which prefers to them the 
fleeting advantages of this world, is the notion that, 
for the cares of the other world, whatever may be 
at some future time their necessity, there is no pre- 
sent occasion or, at least, no immediate and urgent 
hurry, " The temporal concerns of this life," they 
reason, ^'may be inferior in importance to the joys 

* Psalm ix. 17. 



12 SERMON I. 

or sorrows of the life which is to come, but such as 
they are, they are present, and they must be pre- 
sently attended to; whereas the prospects which 
religion holds out are certainly future, may perhaps 
be distant, and may, therefore, safely be deferred till 
to-morrow, or next month, or next year, or ten 
years hence, when there will yet be quite sufficient 
time to arrange our accounts for Heaven, and repent 
at pur leisure of whatever forbidden sweets we have 
stolen a taste of during our passage through things 
temporal." 

To these men it might be easily and truly an- 
swered, that there is no such inevitable and univer- 
sal opposition as they suppose between an adhe- 
rence to the duties of Christianity, and the needful 
cares of the present world ; that our religion itself 
not only permits but enjoins us to unite a diligence 
in business to a fervour in spirit ;* and that, if they 
will make the just deduction from the claims of 
ambition, of avarice, and of idle amusement, they 
will find their temporal duties and their real tempo- 
ral interests consist, for the most part, extremely 
well with their care for eternal happiness. But to 
men so infatuated as these, on their own shewing, 
appear to be ; to men who commit their eternity to 
the chance of a life which any one of ten thousand 
accidents may, the next moment, bring to an end ; 
who he down securely on beds which they may 
change that night for couches of fire, and act as if 

* Romans xii. 11. 



TIME AND ETERNITY. 13 

they alone (of all men living) had made a covenant 
with hell, and could muzzle the jaws of the grave 
till they were themselves disposed to enter it : to 
fools like these what argument can be successfully 
offered ? I know no course but to alarm their in- 
stinctive fears with examples of early and sudden 
mortality ; to tell them how such an one went to 
his bed a healthy and a prosperous man, on whose 
countenance the shadow of death was dark in the 
morning; how the marriage feast was spread in 
such a house, and the young bride passed to her 
chamber, and knew not that the mirth of her friends 
would soon be changed into sorrow over her grave ; 
of such a neighbour who went forth to the gate of 
the city, and the crowd trode on him that he died ; 
of these men slain by robbers ; of those swallowed 
up by the sea ; of some that fell victims to the pes- 
tilence that walketh in darkness, and others whom 
a fly, a grape-stone, a flint in the path, or a tile from 
the house-top took away, in the morning of their 
lives, and the middle of their schemes, and the heat 
of their blood and their transgressions, without a 
day, an hour, a moment for reflection or for prayer.* 
They may be told that the repentance and atten- 
tion to holy things, on which they reckon as so cer- 
tainly to take place in themselves hereafter, do not 
depend, even should life be spared them, on their 
own choice or resolution ; that they are the gifts of 
the Almighty, which He may either grant or with- 

* Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying, sect. i. 



14 SERMON I. 

hold; and that He whose Spirit will not always 
strive with man, may be so far provoked by their 
present contumacy as to abandon them hencefor- 
ward to a reprobate mind, and weary them no more 
with His mercy and His offers of salvation. And 
this, if any thing has that power, may induce them 
while the day of grace yet lasts to have mercy on 
themselves, to estimate the things which are seen 
at no more than their proper value, and to pay that 
attention which is just and reasonable to the un- 
seen things of eternity. 

The last cause of this neglect of unseen and eter- 
nal things is a confirmed habit of sin. Of the un- 
fortunate persons who are thus tied and bound, it 
may be said that they have rendered themselves 
absolutely incapable, without a more than usual 
share of Divine assistance, of entertaining spiritual 
thoughts at all, or even of judging of that rehgion 
which the Son of God brought down from Heaven. 
By Christ's own testimony it was needful that a 
man should do His Father's will, in order that he 
might learn of the Christian doctrine whether it 
were true ; and we find by daily experience, that he 
who knows his whole life to be displeasing to God, 
and yet, from long habit, has neither the power nor 
the desire to change it, is on this very account in- 
disposed to direct his thoughts either to the joys 
or to the sorrows of immortality. His affections 
arc of the earth, earthly ; the songs of angels and 
the glories of intellectual existence, have no charms 
for him : and if the narrow gate of Hfe were even 



TIME AND ETERNITY. 15 

now expanded wider for his admission, he would 
only miss and regret the indulgence of his recol- 
lected appetites, amid the splendours of God's 
house and the pure gales of Paradise. Or, shall 
the terrors of the Lord be urged to him.^ He 
trembles hke Felix, but hke Felix he turns away t 
He cannot forsake his darling habits, though he 
already experiences a foretaste of their bitter con- 
sequences ; and he cries out to God's Spirit, as the 
evil spirit cried out to God's Son, " art thou come 
to torment me before the time .^"* 

Of such as these who are now grown old in ini- 
quity, there are some it may be feared who are, hu- 
manly speaking, beyond the reach of any help but 
prayer. But the less hardened it may not be useless 
to remind of those glorious promises of the Gos- 
pel, which hold out hopes of success to them who, 
even at the eleventh hour, repent and seek forgive- 
ness; to remind them that to forsake their evil 
habits will be a task the more difficult the longer 
it is delayed, and that the most rooted habit may 
yet give way to a steadfast determination of will, 
to a reasonable retirement from the objects which 
most enslave them, to hearty and persevering prayer, 
and to that prevailing help of the Most High, which, 
where prayer is, will never long be absent. 

But of all these victims of delusion, of him who 
disbelieves, or altogether disregards the Gospel, of 
him who, admitting its truth and its importance, 
defers its necessary cares to a future and indefinite 

* St. Matt. viii. 29. 



16 SERMON I. 

period ; of him who is so immersed in siii that he 
has neither eyes nor affections for the concerns of 
his soul and the blessings or terrors of Christianity; 
for all these different symptoms of the same inter- 
nal weakness and corruption, the cure is, in a great 
degree, the same. As they all err from a too great 
attention to the objects which, in the present life, 
surround them, it should be the endeavour of them 
all, by attendance on the outward means of instruc- 
tion and of grace, by a study of the Scriptures, by 
a participation in the solemn ordinances of religion, 
by a steady and resolute contemplation of the evi- 
dences, the commandments, the promises, and the 
threatenings of the Gospel, to impress their souls 
with the comparative httleness of all earthly pros- 
pects, and with the constant recollection of that 
event which is, every moment, approaching nearer 
to all of us, and which will enable us all, though 
perhaps too late, to estimate both temporal and 
eternal things at their real value. 

We read of a certain youth in the early days of 
Christianity, (those periods of historic suffering and 
heroic patience and legendary wonder to which I 
have already ventured to call your attention) — we 
read of a Christian youth on whom his persecutors 
had put in practice a more than common share of 
their cruel ingenuity, that by his torments (let 
those who will, or can, go through the horrible de- 
tails) they might compel him to deny his Lord and 
Saviour. After a long endurance of those pains 
t.hev released him in wonder at his obstinacv. HIf 



TIME AND ETERNITY. if 

Christian brethren are said to have wondered too, 
and to have asked him by what mighty faith he 
could so strangely subdue the violence of the fire, 
as that neither a cry nor a groan escaped him. 
*'It was, indeed, most painful,*' was the noble 
youth's reply ; " but an angel stood by me when 
my anguish was at the worst, and with his finger 
pointed to Heaven." Oh thou, whoever thou art, 
that art tempted to commit a sin, do thou think on 
death, and that thought will be an angel to thee! 
The hope of Heaven will raise thy courage above 
the fiercest threatenings of the w^orldj the fear of 
hell will rob its persuasions of their enchantments . 
and the very extremity of thy trial may itself con- 
tribute to animate thy exertions by the thought 
that the greater thy endurance now, the greater 
will be thy reward hereafter. The wildest tempta- 
tion must shortly have an end; the fiercest flame 
must burn out for want of fuel; the most bitter 
cup, when drunk to the di'egs, will trouble thee no 
more. These things are temporal, and hasten, 
while 1 speak, to pass away ; but the hope which is 
visible to the inward eye of faith is unfading, eter- 
nal, heavenly. Bear up, a little while bear up in 
the cause of immortaUty ! If thy trial is intolera- 
ble, it will by so much the sooner have an end. 
Thy heart may break, but thy good angel points to 
Heaven, and One, greater than the angels, will, ere 
long, fulfil His promise, "Be thou faithful unto 
death, and I wdll give thee a crown of life!" 

VOL. I. O 



SERMON II. 



ON THE PRESENCE OF GOOD ANGELS. 

[Preached before the University of OxfoTcf, 1818, and at 
Lincoln's Inn.] 



2 Kings vi. 16. 

Fear not, for tliey that he with us are more than they which he 
ivith them. 

In a war between the kings of Syria and Israel, the 
prophet Ehsha had, on various occasions, given 
warning to the latter sovereign of the enterprises 
of his enemy. The plans of the invader being thus 
repeatedly defeated, he determined to revenge him- 
self on the person whom, with good reason, he 
apprehended to be the cause of his disasters, and 
he despatched a body of strong men by night to 
surprise Elisha in Dothan. Accordingly, the sacred 
historian informs us, " when the servant of the man 
of God was risen early and gone forth, behold an 
host compassed the city both with horses and cha- 
riots. And his servants said unto him, Alas, my 
master, how shall we do.'^ And he answered. Fear 
not, for they that be with us are more than they 
which be with them. And Elisha prayed and said, 
Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes that he may see. 
And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, 
and he saw, and behold the mountain was full 
of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.'' 



ON THE PRESENCE OF GOOD ANGELS. 19 

The conclusion of the history I need not repeat 
to you ; the use which I now design to make of it 
is to urge on your attention, first, the nature and 
certainty of that invisible protection which the Al- 
mighty, in this life, affords to those who love and 
fear Him ; and, secondly, the number and power of 
the heavenly spirits, by whose agency He thus sup- 
ports and protects them under those necessary evils 
which His wisdom sends to try and purify them, 
and against those innumerable dangers which His 
mercy will not suffer to overwhelm them. Both 
these doctrines, I apprehend, are implied, if not 
expressed, in the answer of Elisha to his terrified 
servant, and in the miracle by which that answer 
was confirmed. For if God is not accustomed to 
interfere in the defence of His servants, the presence 
of the angels, who are God's ministers, could have 
been no further ground of confidence to the pro- 
phet than the height of the neighbouring moun- 
tains, and the splendour of the morning sun ; and if 
there were no angels, or if the angels were not the 
usual ministers of God in such works of mercy and 
protection, Ehsha could not have appealed to their 
numbers and fiery chariots as his reasons for de- 
spising the armies of Syria. The history, there- 
fore, should seem to teach the doctrines of a par- 
ticular Providence, and of the existence and minis- 
try of angels. 

That " the eyes of the Lord are over the righte- 
ous," and that "His ears are open to their prayers,"* 

* 1 Peter iii. 12 



•JO SERMON 11. 

that He, without whom not a sparrow falleth to the 
ground, regardeth His servants as of more value 
" than many sparrows ;"* that our times are in His 
hands, and that, by the promise of dehverance, He 
hath encouraged us to call on Him in the day of 
trouble; are doctrines which, in some sense or 
other, must be admitted by all who admit the in- 
spiration of Scripture ; and they are so consistent 
in themselves with the attributes of God, and so 
necessary amid the dangers and sufferings of our 
mortal existence, that if something of the kind were 
not to be found in Scripture, the omission might 
be almost enough to make it probable that our re- 
ligion did not come from God. 

Yet it has been the endeavour of many specious 
reasoners to contract within narrow bounds their 
acknowledgment of a superintending and directing 
Providence ; to refer all things which are done or 
endured, either in us or around us, to an impulse 
given by God, in the first instance, to His creation ; 
or, at most, to a pervading energy whereby the 
course of events is conducted in an even tenour, and 
controlled by him to the general furtherance of 
His great designs, and the general interests of His 
creatures. They are content to thank the Almighty 
for the beauty and harmony of that goodly fabric 
which His right hand hath builded, and for that 
knowledge of his own nature, and our eternal ex- 
pectations, which he hath given us through His Son. 
They are content to implore (as an acknowledg- 

*- 8t. Luke xii. 7. 



ON THE PRESENCE OF GOOD ANGELS. 21 

ment of their dependence on Him) the continuance 
of His general protection, and the accomplishment 
of His general promises ; but they find it hard to 
believe that any of the separate occurrences of life 
can proceed from separate and particular interpo- 
sitions of His power ; that His hand is, in any case, 
immediately exerted to protect or punish indivi- 
duals ; that the arm of a particular enemy is ever 
weakened ; that the stroke of a particular disease 
is ever interrupted ; that individual nakedness is 
ever clothed, or individual hunger satisfied, by the 
direct act of His will, or as a definite answer to our 
petitions. 

These things depend, they tell us, on that wheel 
of events, which, however its issues are at first sight 
various and infinite, yet, on the whole, and when 
viewed by the comprehensive glance of an historian 
or a philosopher, is found to perform its revolutions 
with an uniformity most mysterious and terrible ; of 
which the machinery is too vast to be discomposed 
for the sake of such worms as we are, and of which 
the consequences must, therefore, happen indiflfer- 
ently " to the righteous and to the wicked, to the 
good, and to the clean, and to the unclean ; to him 
that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not."* 
Thus they observe, first, that so close and necessary 
is the connexion between events and their causes, 
and so high may this connexion be traced in its 
ascent to the First Cause of all, it is impossible to 

* Eccles. ix. 2. 



2^ SERMON II. 

conceive that certain causes should fail to produce 
certain consequences ; that the chain of causes and 
effects once begun could be interrupted without a 
miracle ; or that any of these, when the first link in 
the chain was framed, could thenceforward be con- 
tingent or uncertain. But it is difficult, they con- 
tend, to believe that God should continually or fre- 
quently interfere, by miracles, lo change an order 
of events which He has Himself appointed ; and it 
is still more difficult to shew that any of those 
circumstances which we regard as providential 
interpositions, have happened without a sufficient 
natural cause, or in a manner at variance with the 
natural succession of causes and consequences. It is, 
therefore, they tell us, most reasonable to suppose, 
that the Almighty conducts the affairs of men on the 
same general principles, and with the same unde- 
viating and implacable firmness as He administers 
the great revolutions of nature ; neither repenting 
Him of His purposes, nor varying His conduct, as 
one by whom nothing from the beginning was un- 
foreseen, and whose first designs were too nice and 
perfect to need any future revision. 

And this doctrine, they maintain, is remarkably 
confirmed by the fact that of all the casualties, as 
we term them, which befall a given number of men, 
the average amount may be very exactly calculated 
beforehand, insomuch that it is not only probable, 
but so nearly certain, as to be the common princi- 
ple on which many pecuniary speculations are 
founded, that of so many individuals of a given age. 



ON THE PRESENCE OF GOOD ANGELS, 23 

such a number will, in the course of a year, be at- 
tacked by death, disease, or accident ; that of so 
many houses, such a proportion will become a prey 
to the flames ; that of so many vessels, such an 
amount will perish amid the rage of the elements. 
"How then can we dream," they exultingly demand, 
" that our lives or interests are of such importance 
as that God should, for them, suspend the march of 
His creation? How dare we pray to be freed from 
our allotted share of those evils, which, if they do 
not fall on us, must necessarily be laid as an addi- 
tional burden on some of our fellow-creatures ?" 
It is not only the plausibility of these opinions, 
/^^T^^r their apparent inconsistency with the doctrine 
implied in my text, which makes me anxious to 
shew their inherent fallacy. They conduct to so 
much practical as well as speculative evil, to conse- 
quences so impious in themselves, and productive 
of so much present and future misery to those who 
adopt them, that this, in itself, may induce a suspi- 
cion that the doctrine cannot be true, which, when 
carried to its full extent, will land us in such con- 
clusions. Of the consequences which result from the 
denial of a particular Providence, the most evident 
as well as the most obnoxious, and that which, as 
we have seen, its supporters are least anxious to 
conceal, is one, nevertheless, extremely offensive to 
Christian ears, and extremely contrary to the gene- 
ral tenour of the Gospel. It is, that all prayer for 
earthly blessings is nothing else than an idle cere- 
mony. It is but in vain that they would make a 



24 SERMON IL 

distinction between prayer for general and for par- 
ticular blessings, as if the former could be reason- 
able subjects of entreaty to the throne of grace, 
while the latter were vain and impious. A general 
blessing means, if it means any thing, the aggregate 
of many particulars ; and it is the same thing in 
effect, since the one is only an abridgment of the 
other, whether we ask for God's favour and protec- 
tion simply, or whether we specify in our prayer all 
the different circumstances in which His favour is 
exhibited. The advantages or disadvantages of 
either method of devotion are found in their effect 
on our own hearts only. It may be wise to exercise 
ourselves to a sense of our own ignorance and weak- 
ness by leaving the detail of our wants to God's all- 
seeing care, content with such general applications 
for His help as may ensure to us that help in what- 
ever instance it is most expedient for us. It may 
be wiser still, and I believe it to be most conforma- 
ble to the nature of man, and the course recom- 
mended in Scripture, to quicken our tardy zeal, and 
warm our languid piety, by the enumeration of all 
those things which we most desire or dread at God's 
hands, submitting ourselves, in each particular, to 
His Almighty will and wisdom. But, however our 
prayers may be worded, our desires, if we pray earn- 
estly, must always dwell on those precise instances 
of blessing or deliverance which are the nearest, for 
the time, to our hearts. Even in a wish, we cannot 
separate the general idea of happiness from those 
component parts for which happiness is only a com- 



ON THE PRESENCE OF GOOD ANGELS. 25 

prehensive term ; and it matters not to Him " who 
knoweth what is in the mind of the spirit," whether 
our aspirations approach Him in the " groanings 
which cannot be uttered"* of St. Paul, or in the 
various supphcations and deprecations of the long^ 
est htany. 

It is plain, then, both that a petition merely ge- 
neral is in effect a species of prayer which, however 
it may have been uttered by the lips, never yet was 
conceived by the heart of man ; and also that, even 
if it were offered up, it could only be fulfilled by 
the gift from God of those particular blessings, or 
the major part of them, which together make up the 
complex idea of protection or of happiness. If God 
will not interfere to give us the items^ it is certain 
that He will not interfere to give us the sum ; and if 
prayer for the particular interposition of Providence 
is vain and superstitious, we can pass no other cen- 
sure on the most general appUcation for His favour. 

" But prayer may still be well-pleasing to God, 
as expressive of our dependence on Him." Now' 
here, in the first place, it is not easy to perceive how^ 
any unprofitable and unmeaning action can be ac- 
ceptable to an all-wise and perfect Being. But, 
secondly, what is meant by our dependence on a 
Being whom we can neither provoke to our further 
misery, nor conciliate to our further happiness ; who 
has already, by an irrevocable fiat, stamped the 
character of our lot in life, and put it beyond His 

* Romans x. 26. 
vol.. 1 E 



26 SERMON 11. 

power to alter our position in the world, except^ 
which it would be impious to look for, at the ex- 
pense of His own consistency? Dependence involves 
in itself the notion of contingency. Whatever is 
determined, is, in a certain sense, already past, and 
the past may be the subject of gratitude or sorrow, 
but is placed beyond the reach of hope or anxiety. 
But it is not for earthly blessings alone that 
prayer is rendered vain by the doctrine which I am 
now considering. It is not a temporal fatalism only 
which follows from denying that the events of this 
life are influenced by a particular Providence. 

In this span of earthly being we might endure to 
take our chance of happiness or misery, content to 
bear our allotted burthen without a murmur or a 
prayer, if the world to come were free from the in- 
exorable rule of destiny, and if it depended on our- 
selves so to pass through the present valley of tears, 
as to secure the hope of future and eternal felicity. 
But how (if our worldly and physical visitations be 
regarded as the result of an unalterable chain of 
causes and consequences) how can the human will 
or the moral actions or habits of mankind be ex- 
empted from the same necessity ? Are not they hnks 
in the same chain ? Are not our moral characters 
frequently influenced by external occurrences ? Do 
they not often produce, in their turn, an effect on 
the external circumstances of ourselves, and of 
those around us ? Of those casualties of which the 
regular and computed recurrence has been advanced 
as an argument to show their fatality, can we for- 



ON THE PRESENCE OF GOOD ANGELS. 27 

get that a great, perhaps the greatest, proportion 
have their origin in some voluntary action or habit 
of individuals ? It is not the fire of Heaven, it is 
not the rage of elements, which our houses or our 
ships have only to apprehend, but the carelessness 
of intoxication, the malice of the incendiary, the 
armed violence of the pirate or mutineer. Of 
deaths, too, (and out of every number of deaths 
which the calculation of the ensurer anticipates, 
how many may be named which do not proceed 
from the decay or diseases of nature, or from the 
natural, though mortal dangers which hover in 
every breeze and lurk in every thicket ?) how many 
are there which may be traced to guilty violence, 
or to equally guilty indulgence, to the actions 
of our enemies, our progenitors, or ourselves, ac- 
tions for which they or we are one day to render a 
most strict account, and for which, according to 
their atrocity, or to the repentance and faith with 
which they have been followed, the Judge of men 
and angels will exact a less or greater punishment ? 
But if the circumstances of life by which the moral 
habits of man are formed, if the accidents of life to 
which these moral habits give occasion, if these are 
the results of a blind and capricious fate, or of a 
pre-determined and inevitable arrangement, is it 
not certain that the intervening link must also be 
fixed in the chain ; that there must be a certain 
and necessary amount of moral guilt and virtue 
among mankind, which cannot be increased or di- 
minished bv us. and that it is as vain in man to 



28 SERMON II. 

endeavour to reform the world or himself, as it 
would be unjust in him to seek to be freed from 
that lot of vice which, if he did not bear it, must 
be transferred to some of his fellow-sufferers ? But 
though these horrible consequences are admitted 
without scruple or qualification by the sturdier 
class of fatalists, the bare enunciation of them may 
be thought sufficient with rational deists, to prove 
that doctrines cannot be true which are so incon- 
sistent with all we believe or know of God, of our- 
selves, and our future destiny. 

Still it may be urged (not, surely, by those zea- 
lots of the unitarian school who deny the ordinary 
help of God's Spirit, nor by those followers of 
Augustin and Calvin who ascribe the gifts of the 
Holy Ghost, like all other good gifts, to a previous 
and unalterable purpose of God) it may be urged by 
some that, allowing the course of nature to be bound 
by fate, the human will may still be free, and that 
the soul of man may be so influenced and assisted 
by the gracious inspiration of the Most High, as to 
rise superior to the chances and changes of the 
world, and even convert to his spiritual aliment 
those trials and temptations which appear, at first 
sight, most formidable to his virtue. But they who 
thus distinguish between a material and spiritual 
destiny, have surely forgotten the continual influ- 
ence exerted, not only by external circumstances 
on the will of man, but by the will of man on ex- 
ternal circumstances. If man has freedom of choice 
at all. the actions consequent on such choice, and 



ON THE PRESENCE OF GOOD ANGELS. 29 

the effects of those actions on things around him, 
must depend on that choice alone, and have no 
connexion whatever with the events which preceded 
it. If God's grace, "by which that choice is influ- 
enced, be a contingent, not a predestinated blessing, 
we admit at once an immediate interposing cause, 
which experience proves to have power to deter- 
mine to the greatest extent, the temporal as well 
as the eternal happiness of individuals and commu- 
nities. In the one case the chain of causes and 
events is cut short never to be re-united ; in the 
other, we have a stone hewn without hands, which 
must dash to pieces the complicated and gigantic 
idol of destiny, and scatter its iron, its clay, its 
brass, its silver, and its gold, " like the chaff of the 
summer threshing floor which the wind carried away, 
that no place was found for them."* There can be 
no qualifications of fatalism ; the whole vast bubble 
bursts if we impugn it in any one particular, while if 
we contend for any part of it, all moral obligations 
fall to the ground, and we must make our option in 
theology between admitting the existence of a power 
superior to the Almighty, or divesting the All-good 
of His noblest attributes of justice and mercy. 

With good reason, then, have the great majority 
of rational theists, in every age and country, agreed 
to recognise, in the course of events around them, 
no other agency than the Providence of the Most 
High, apphed to particulars ; a Providence which 
He exerts, indeed, in its grander features, according 

* Dan. ii. 85. 



rlO SERMON 11. 

to an uniform system, but which (in its detail and 
minuter circumstances) He may and does continu- 
ally and infinitely vary, according to the necessi- 
ties, the exertions, the merits, and the prayers of 
His creatures. 

For it is not a doctrine of revealed religion only, 
that God is the moral as well as the physical Gov- 
ernor of the world, and that the course of events 
is so arranged by Him, as, even in the present life, 
to promote the interests of virtue, to cross the 
schemes of impiety, to consult the happiness, and 
to be influenced by the prayers of the righteous and 
the penitent. This has been the hope, this the 
faith, this the fear, this the religion of every nation, 
how rude soever, by whom, under whatever name, 
the Almighty has been named, or His altars, with 
whatever worship, honoured. True it is that they 
have not supposed in this world a perfect retribu- 
tion, or anticipated an exact adjustment of earthly 
good or evil, according to the virtues or the demerits 
of individuals. This they have believed to be re- 
served to a future state of being, in which the 
inequalities of the present life were to be redressed, 
and the good rewarded richly for their patient en- 
durance of those calamities which had been, for wise 
ends, imposed on them. But that, even in the pre- 
sent world, impiety and oppression were sometimes 
exemplarily punished ; that, in this valley of tears 
and darkness, the virtuous were sometimes exem- 
plarily delivered and supported ; that prayer might 
concihate, and repentance appease, and virtue se- 
cure the favour of the Sovereign ruler of events and 



ON THE PRESENCE OF GOOD ANGELS. :^1 

their causes, are opinions coeval and coextensive 
with a behef in God's being at all, or only lost amid 
those miserable savages to whom the difficulties of 
procuring subsistence have left no time for medita- 
tion, and who, in the pressing wants of the passing 
day, have ceased to regard the invisible world with 
hope or apprehension. 

Where the idea of God is admitted at all, it is 
hard, indeed, to represent to ourselves a God who is 
indifferent to the distresses or the conduct of His 
creatures ; and the possibility of such a divinity was 
conceived by Epicurus only, when he had divested 
him of his character as Creator. A mere bystander 
may, indeed, be supposed to retire into the unap- 
proachable recesses of an unmoved and happy im- 
mortahty ; he may avert his eyes from the vast and 
disfigured scene of blood and misery to some hap- 
pier spot, if such is to be found, of comparative 
peace and virtue.* 

But though the bystander might enjoy his own 
quiet amid the wretchedness of nations, the parent 
may be naturally expected to feel for his children's 
wants, and to hear his children's petitions. The 
same instinct which inclines us to watch over the 
welfare of our own little ones, that instinct leads us 

* Toug fjLSv g'a ifa^a vYipZ(fi ifovov t' t'xsV^" '<*' o'?^^ 
NwXsfjiiSwj* auToj Ss TfaXiv r^sVsfjt. otfrfs cpasivu 
No(j'(piv s(p' »'B''?ro';roXwv ©^igxwv xa^o^w/xsvo^ atav 
MucToov t' dyxsjm,a;)(6av, xai dyavdv 'l<n^'n'ri^o'k'yCJv 
PXaxTocaywv , 'A/3«ojv ts, ^jxajorarwv ctv^^W'rr'wv. 

Horn. II. N. 2, 



\i2 SERMON II. 

to expect relief from our unseen Father when, ill 
bitterness of heart, we call on Him ; and there are 
times of mental calamity in which, even if prayer 
were useless, or even sinful, it would be next to 
impossible to abstain from it. Nor do I know a 
greater presumptive proof of the reasonableness of 
any practice, or any expectation, than its universal 
reception among mankind, its entire conformity 
with our natural wants and feelings, and that it be- 
longs to the number of those primary tenets, those 
svvoi'a/, which, if not born with us, yet necessarily 
and speedily arise within us from the constitu- 
tion of our nature and the disposition of things 
around us. 

Nor is this opinion really at variance with the 
facts alleged against it, or with the degree of regu- 
larity found in the recurrence of those dispensations 
which, by storing the experience, assist the foresight 
of the calculator. That regularity, such as it is, 
depends not only on the natural exhaustion of the 
human body, on the natural phenomena of the 
earth, the water, and the air, but still more on the 
continuance of a certain state of civil society, on 
the civil tranquillity or moral habits of a people, on 
the facilities afforded, or the barriers opposed, to 
crime, and on the degree in which that indigence, 
which often leads to crime, is alleviated or pre- 
vented. Accordingly, to two nations or two periods 
of society differing in these respects from each other, 
tlie same calculation will not apply. A very differ- 
ent ratio of casualties belongs to Norway and to 



ON THE PRESENCE OP GOOD ANGELS. 33 

France, as well as to France during the rage of re- 
volution, and France during its previous tranquil- 
lity. The ensurer must reform his tables if he car* 
lies them from England into Turkey, and in Eng- 
land itself a difference, notoriously springing from 
moral causes, has arisen within the present age in 
the average of longevity. 

But, further, it being granted that the moral and 
rehgious habits of a nation exert an influence over 
the casualties to which the individuals of that na- 
tion are exposed, it is plain that there are two ways 
in which the manner of that influence may be stated ; 
and that it is as allowable in the asserter of a pecu-^ 
har Providence to say, that God gives health and 
prosperity to the virtuous, as it is for his opponent 
to explain the whole phenomena by the physical 
effects of temperance and industry. Nor wiU the 
regularity with which these dispensations succeed 
each other have power to surprise the believer who 
reflects that, v/hile the morals and religion of a 
country are stationary, an equal number of crimes 
will call down an equal number of chastisements? 
and that the same prayers may generally receive 
the same answers fi*om the God who " maketh a 
fruitful land barren for the wickedness of them that 
dwell therein," and who hath promised to " hear in 
Heaven, His dwelhng-place, and forgive and do. and 
give to every man according to his ways.'-* 

* Psalm cvii. 34. 1 Kings viii. -39. 
VOL. T. F 



M iSERMON IT. 

For that the Christian is encouraged thus to 
speak of God, and thus to look up, in every dispen- 
sation of mortahty, to the immediate hand of a pre- 
siding and pervading Providence, is plain, not only 
from the example of Elisha in Dothan, but from 
very many texts of universal application in which 
this doctrine is expressed or implied. Implied it 
is, indeed, in every passage of Scripture which in- 
culcates the duty and efficacy of prayer either for 
spiritual or, still more, for temporal blessings. For. 
as prayer would be vain and presumptuous unless 
God may be thereby induced to grant what He 
would otherwise have withheld from us, so, as 
prayer is recommended and enjoined, we may be 
sure it is neither presumptuous nor vain, and that, 
when we ask for daily bread, for peace, for deliver- 
ance from sickness or from danger, for the welfare 
of our friends, of our nation, or of our governors, 
or for any other of those particular blessings which 
we are encouraged in Scripture to seek from the 
bounty of the Most High, we ask for that, our ob- 
taining of which depends on an act of His will, and 
which He is the more inclined to bestow on us in 
consequence of such our petitions : nor is more re- 
quired to show that the world is not a machine, but 
a kingdom, in which events do not bhndly or ne- 
cessarily succeed each other, but rational agents are 
governed and rewarded by Him who is Himself Rea- 
son and Wisdom, whose eyes follow us, whose hand 
holds us. whose Spirit lives within us, but who re- 



ON THE PRESENCE OF GOOD ANGELS. 35 

gards with a very different eye, and governs with a 
very different sceptre, the children of His love, and 
those whose ways are perverse before^Him. 

Still, however, it will be said that experience is 
against the doctrine ; that strong as these expres- 
sions are, and plausible as is the system which we 
build on them, the truth still is that in this world 
there is no visible difference made between the 
righteous and the wicked; that injustice often tri- 
umphs ; that innocence is often depressed ; that the 
servants of God, so far from having less, are directed 
by Christ Himself to prepare for more than their 
share of certain species of affliction ; insomuch that 
a prosperous condition in this life is made an un- 
favourable symptom of our spiritual state, and VvC 
are expressly told, that '• Vv^hom the Lord loveth 
He chasteneth."* 

I answer that, to the first part of this objection 
the second is, in itself, a sufficient reply, inasmuch 
as admitting, in its fullest extent, the fact that the 
righteous are, in this world, often miserable, yet 
would this fact be reconciled to the doctrine of an 
especial Providence, by the knowledge that these 
sufferings are not casual or fatal, but chastisements 
inflicted by a wise and tender Parent. The pre- 
sence and care of the physician is as surely recog- 
nised in the severest inflictions of his skill, as in the 
anodyne or in the cordial; the mercy of God was 
as surely displayed when the vanity of St. Paul wa?; 

"^^ Heb. xii. 6. 



30 SERMON 11. 

reproved by the buffetings of Satan, as when the 
same apostle was saved from the waves of MeUta, 
or upborne by the Spirit above the regions of mor- 
tahty to catch the triumphal hymn, and behold the 
ineffable glories of angels and saints in Paradise. 
Nor is more promised to the most illustrious of 
God's favourites, nor can more be reasonably de- 
sired by a passenger through the wilderness of the 
present life, than that such afflictions, and such 
only, shall visit him, as have a tendency to expedite 
his journey, and that so much, and no more, of 
temporal happiness shall be afforded him as is con- 
sistent with the far nobler prospects of eternity. 
Still less have the righteous cause to distrust the 
care, or murmur against the justice of Providence, 
when they behold, with David, the wicked in out- 
ward prosperity, or the enemies of God exalted to 
a power of oppressing and insulting His servants. 
Why should we envy another those advantages 
which God only withholds from ourselves because 
He knows them to be inexpedient for us ? Or how 
can we forget that even the wicked, in the stations 
where God has placed them, are no more than the 
blind executioners of His will, and, therefore, only 
tolerated as instruments of unintended good, or of 
needful correction to those whom the Almighty fa- 
vours ? Or shall we grudge the tares their rain 
and sunshine, when we know that these tares are 
allowed to stand in mercy to the wheat which is 
mingled with them ? Or shall we not rather make 
it the subject of our hope and our intercession, that 



ON THE PRESENCE OF GOOD ANGELS. 37 

the bounties showered on them, and the afflictions 
which we complain of, may be medicines alike, 
though medicines of a different character, to the 
heahng of their sickness and our own ? 

It is further to be recollected that the outward 
signs of happiness and prosperity are often, to the 
last degree, deceitfiil ; that there are rods in God's 
hands which have power to make the ambitious 
person wretched on a throne, to cause the volup- 
tuary to eat his feast in bitterness of heart, and 
the miser to weep over his accumulated treasure. 
'' There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, 
and it is common among men; a man to whom. God 
hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he 
wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth ; 
yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a 
stranger eateth it ; this is vanity, and it is an evil dis- 
ease."* And, omitting that still small voice of con- 
science which alone was accounted sufficient by the 
sages of antiquity, to incline the balance of worldly 
happiness to the side of virtue, yet, if the absence 
of worldly care, if constant and useful occupation, if 
the love and veneration of the truly wise and good. 
and the buoyant sense of successful resistance to 
persecution be indeed pleasurable sensations, who 
shall say that Paul was not far happier in his bonds 
than Nero on his golden bed, or than that FeHx who 
trembled on his judgment-seat ? In point of exter- 
nal circumstances the apostlesof Christ were indeed 

* Eccles. vi. 1, 2. 



38 ;SERMON II. 

of all men most miserable ; but that their employ- 
ment and situation afforded them many compen- 
sating enjoyments, may be apprehended not only 
from the reason of the case, but from the promise 
of their omniscient Master, that whosoever had 
abandoned houses and lands, and wife and children, 
for His name's sake, should receive manifold more 
of blessing in the present life, as well as in that life 
everlasting, where his toils were finally to be re- 
warded.* 

But after all, with the exception of some peculiar 
dispensations, it will be by no means easy to shew, 
on any grounds of Scripture or experience, that the 
balance of good and evil is, in this life, unfavourable 
to the virtuous even in those outward gifts of Pro- 
vidence, in which, till they are tried, it is natural 
for flesh and blood to look for happiness. Perfect 
bliss, indeed, is not to be found below ; and even if 
bliss unalloyed were the promised reward of virtue, 
I know not where we should seek for that perfect 
virtue which could claim it. But is it really true 
that, in the ordinary dispensations of Providence, no 
advantage is given to virtue.^ Why then does every 
instance of successful vice, or virtue oppressed, ex- 
cite not only our murmurs, but our astonishment ? 
On what principle but that of experience could the 
heathen orator pronounce it impossible for the im- 
pious and perjured man to found a lasting empire ? 
Or was it not an inspired experience which led the 

^ St. Matt. xix. 20. 



ON THE PRESENCE OF GOOD ANGELS. 3§ 

Psalmist to declare that, in the course of a long life, 
he had never seen the righteous forsaken ? Perfect 
felicity, I repeat, is given to none; and that definite 
felicity, which arises from wealth and power, is no 
where promised to God's children. But the pro- 
mise is most blessed which, without determining 
the exact share of temporal advantages which may 
fall to them, assures them, in every state of life, of 
support, of comfort and protection, and so much, 
and no more, of worldly happiness or wordly suffer- 
ings, as He who loves them best, and knows them 
best, perceives to be most for their advantage. 

It yet remains for me to discuss the nature and 
number of those spirits, by whose agency, as dis- 
closed in my text, the Almighty interposes in the 
defence and assistance of His servants. This will 
be the subject of a future sermon. But I cannot 
conclude my present discourse without shortly call- 
ing your attention to the practical results which 
flow from the doctrine of a particular Providence, 
in the hope that God may bless their consideration 
to our holiness here, and our everlasting happiness 
hereafter. 

In the first place, few considerations are more full 
of comfort, or more apt to excite in us an unbound- 
ed gratitude or veneration, than the knowledge 
that the events of Ufe are not administered by blind 
chance or inexorable destiny, but by the immediate 
superintendence of the wisest and best of Beings, 
by whom our wants are known, by whom our 
prayers are heard, by whom our exertions after hap- 



10 SERMON fl. 

piness are rendered efficacious and successful, who 
" careth for those who cast their cares upon Him," 
and makes " all things work together for good to 
those who love " Him. Verily " the Lord reigneth, 
let the earth rejoice, let the multitude of isles be 
glad thereof." " We give Thee thanks, O Lord God 
Almighty, because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy 
great power, and hast reigned."* 

Secondly, it must shew how greatly godliness has 
the advantage in this world as well as the world 
to come, if we consider that, as neither good nor 
evil is dispensed to mankind at random, so if we are 
fit for good, good will come to us ; while if we are 
ready to faint under the gracious chastisement of 
God, the surest way to obtain rehef is, by the dili- 
gent amendment of our lives, to render that chas- 
tisement unnecessary. Nor can a stronger induce- 
ment be found to think humbly of our own success 
in life, and charitably of the failures of other men, 
than the assurance that both they and we can only 
so far succeed as God has determined for us, and 
that " it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that 
runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy."t 

And, lastly, when we accustom ourselves to look 
up to God as His daily and hourly pensioners, and to 
ascribe whatever we receive or obtain to His boun- 
teous and only dispensation, we may learn to look 
on prayer not only as a duty but a privilege, and to 

■' 1 St. Pet. V. 7. Rom. viii. 28. P.snlni. vcvii. 1. Hov, x'l. 17. 
i Roinnns i.v. 10. 



ON THE PRESENCE OF GOOD ANGELS, 41 

apply to His throne for the good things which we 
desire from Him, with as much earnestness and re- 
gularity as we now betake ourselves to the outward 
and ordinary means of obtaining the gratification of 
our wishes. Yea more, with this pervading and 
abiding sense of God's infinite presence and power, 
the necessary pursuits of the present life will, them- 
selves, become devotional, as we go forth to our 
toil, and commence our studies in His name from 
whom every good gift proceeds, and consecrate to 
His service whatever increase He shall bestow of 
knowledge, or renown, or prosperity! 



VOL. I. 



SERMON III. 



ON THE MINISTRY OF GOOD ANGELS. 

[Preached before the University of Oxford, 1818, and at 
Lincoln's Inn.] 



2 Kings vi. 16, 

Fear not ! for tliey that be mith us are fnore than they which 
are with them. 

We are now arrived at the second branch of the 
inquiry which these words have suggested, the ex- 
istence, namely, and the number of those invisible 
beings, by whose agency the Almighty (as in the' 
case of the prophet Elisha) protects or consoles 
His servants. 

For that they were spiritual and celestial guards 
to whose presence Ehsha thus referred, and on 
whose power and numbers he reposed his hope of 
safety is plain, both from the reason of his words 
themselves, and from the miracle by which those 
words were corroborated, when the eyes of his at- 
tendant were so purged from the film of mortality 
as to behold those terrific ranks, whose chariots 
thronged the mount, and interposed their burning 
wheels between the prophet and his Syrian enemies. 
But though the literal and obvious sense of the 
words is thus undoubted, a question has still been 



ON THE MINISTRY OF GOOD ANGELS. 43 

raised whether the expression of EHsha is not ca- 
pable of a figurative meaning; whether by the 
angels who are thus said, in Scripture, to encamp 
around the righteous, any thing more is intended 
than to express, in lively colours and imagery fami- 
liar to eastern eloquence, the ever-watchful care and 
ever-ready help of Providence ; or at most those 
powers of the material world which are wielded by 
the immediate and invisible sway of Him, who 
"makeththe winds His messengers," in whose cause 
the heavenly bodies " in their courses fight toge- 
ther," and to whose call " the lightnings answer." 
The " famine," " the pestilence," and " the sword," 
are apostrophized and personified as His servants in 
the same glowing flights of oratory ; and His glory 
is said to be proclaimed, and His praises sung by 
" the deep," " the mountains," " the corn-fields," 
and the " morning-stars." We know what is meant 
when Minerva reminds Achilles of that which his 
own reason might well have suggested to him ; and 
the prudence of Jacob, and the blessing which the 
Almighty bestowed on his labours might, with equal 
propriety, be described in the sacred volume as 
"the angel" which led him by the way, and deliv- 
ered him in all his troubles. There are instances 
in the Apocalyptic visions where the mortal pro- 
tectors of the Church, or the mortal invaders of the 
Roman empire are supposed to be allegorically de- 
scribed as angels engaged in the execution of God's 
judgments. The plagues and diseases which befel 
the Egyptians, are spoken of by the Psalmist as 



44 SERMON III. 

" evil angels sent among them ;"^ and a very little 
extension of the same principle may lead us to sup- 
pose that no more v^as meant by the words of 
Ehsha than to express his confidence in that divine 
protection which, in fact, did not preserve him by 
the shields and spears of any celestial guards, but 
by blinding the eyes and confusing the understand- 
ing of the Syrians sent to surprise him. 

" Why, indeed," it has been further asked, 
" should such intermediate agents be employed by 
a God who is omnipresent and almighty ? It is 
only the imperfection and weakness of earthly mo- 
narchs which are disguised by the flimsy veil of 
solemn and ceremonious attendance, and which 
compel them to receive their information or accom- 
plish their designs through the eyes and hands of 
others. But how different is the case with Him 
who beholds, and embraces, and pervades, and sus- 
tains the universe; and how superfluous does it 
seem to crowd the court of Heaven with these un- 
meaning pageants, whose praises and homage can 
confer no honour on Him from whom all things are 
derived; whose swiftness is idle with Him from 
whom nothing can escape, and whose fiery chariots 
are but an empty show in His presence who need but 
withhold His breath to reduce His enemies to their 
original nothing ! It is more reasonable then," they 
tell us, " and more reverential towards the Al- 
mighty, to give an allegorical interpretation to 

^ Psalm Ixxviii. 49. 



ON THE MINISTRY OF GOOD ANGELS. 45 

passages which are very susceptible of it, rather than 
to ascribe to Him, in reaUty, those appendages of a 
mortal king which, however they were adapted to 
the prejudices of a wild and ignorant race, are incon- 
sistent with the more enlarged ideas which Chris- 
tians should entertain of His nature." 

Even " those visions of angels " to men, which 
are so frequently recorded in the Sacred Volume, 
are treated with as little ceremony by these intre- 
pid reasoners, as the words of God's prophets, and 
of His Son. " They were condescensions, they 
tell us, " to the prejudices and weaknesses of man- 
kind ; a part of those paraphernalia of an earthly 
potentate which it pleased God to assume in His 
intercourse with the Jewish people, and no more 
to be received as real existences than the sapphire 
pavement and crystal canopy of His throne, and 
the wheels full of eyes on which Ezekiel beheld 
Him drawn by cherubims. In all these appear- 
ances there are many things," they proceed, 
" which even the warmest advocates of the literal 
interpretation must admit to be illusions only. 
Even if angels exist, and are such as we believe 
them to be, there are few who suppose that spirits 
are attired in such white and flowing robes as they 
have presented to the eyes of mortals, that they are 
furnished, according to the occupations in which 
they are engaged, with harps, or ink-horns, or 
slaughter-weapons, or that they keep guard, in the 
array of ancient warriors, with chariots and horses 
of material fire at the doors of God's distinguished 



46 SERMON IIL 

servants. But if these circumstances are illusive, 
how much remains which is to be accounted real ? 
Or where is the difficulty in supposing that (as God 
in such particulars, avowedly condescends to the 
imperfection of His creatures) so the forms them- 
selves, to which this attire belongs, may be no more 
than splendid phantoms employed by God to im- 
press on the mind of the beholder a sense of His 
power, His presence, or His protection ; but phan- 
toms still, not real and intelligent personages, and 
without habitation or existence except in the ima- 
gination of those whom God has been thus pleased 
to visit or enhghten." 

Opinions like these were, most probably, enter- 
tained by the ancient Sadducees, who could, in no 
other way that I am aware of, make their denial of 
angels accord with the authority of the books of 
Moses. From some passages in the Leviathan 
they seem to have been revived by Hobbes, and 
they have since been advanced by Dr. Priestley, 
though I do not know whether they have made any 
considerable progress among his adherents. To all 
such doctrines a sufficient answer might, perhaps, 
be obtained by a reference to those arguments for the 
literal in preference to the allegorical sense of Scrip- 
ture which I have, on former occasions,* presumed 
to offer to your notice. But as the objection is of 
that popular class which may attract the notice of 
many who have neither leisure nor incHnation to 

*Bampton I^ectiires, 1814 



ON THE MINISTRY OF GOOD ANGELS. 47 

investigate the general principles of allegory and 
metaphor, I am unwilling that the particular diffi- 
culty should pass without a particular reply. 

The question, indeed, is one of far less practical 
importance than the admission or denial of provi- 
dential interposition. If the arm of God is, in any 
form, extended over His servants, it may seem to 
signify but httle whether He protects us by His own 
immediate fiat, or by the agency of glorious spirits 
always at hand to work His will, and guided by His 
good pleasure only. But nothing can be really un- 
important which our Heavenly Father has thought 
fit to reveal to us concerning the manner and ma- 
chinery of His providence ; and so many valuable 
lessons of instruction and comfort may be derived 
by Christians from the consideration of our angelic 
allies and fellow-servants, that it would ill become 
us to give place, in such an article of faith, to the 
unreasonable scepticism of those who, while they 
cling to the name of Christianity, seem anxious to 
prune away from the common creed, whatever 
Christian doctrine transcends the limits of earthly 
experience, or distinguishes the faith delivered to 
the Saints from the imperfect elements of natural 
deism. 

It is, in the first place, allowed on all sides, that 
the allusions to angels as existing, and the express 
or implicit assertions of their existence and agency, 
are, in the Sacred Volume, extremely numerous 
and forcible. There are, indeed, not much less 
than a hundred passages in the Old and New Tes- 



48 SERMON III. 

taments where angels are either spoken of as real and 
active creatures, and servants of the Most High, or 
where they are actually described as having appear- 
ed to mortals, not in dreams or prophetic visions, 
(for these I would not urge too strongly but openly,) 
and to the waking eyes of many persons together. 
Now, of the texts which assert or imply their ex- 
istence, there are many which cannot, without the 
greatest violence to the propriety of language, be 
regarded as rhetorical figures. When Daniel ex- 
pressed his conviction that " God had sent his 
angel to stop the hons' mouths,"* is it likely that 
he would have said this to a heathen sovereign, had 
he not believed in the reality of such a mission ? 
When the Psalmist speaks of man as " made a 
little lower than the angels,* could he mean that a 
real existence is at all inferior to a phantom ? or 
a rational being to the accidents of the material 
world, however figuratively described, or however 
providentially directed ? Is it of a band of shadows, 
a troop of rhetorical ornaments, that Christ is said 
to be made the head ? Or can accidents desire to 
look into the mysteries of the Gospel.^ Are they 
nonentities to which, in the world to come, the 
righteous are to be made equal ? Or would Christ 
and His apostles, in describing the most solemn 
event in which the human race can be interested, 
have so luxuriated in superfluous imagery as to enu- 
merate the angels among the agents concerned in 

■ Dan. vi. 22. t Psalm viii. 5. 



ON THE MINISTRY OF GOOD ANGEL!^. 49 

the day of judgment, if the belief in angels be an 
error ? Let us pause, in God's name, before we thus 
degrade the Holy Scriptures into one interminable 
allegory, or, in the name of common sense, let us, 
at least, place the controversy on its proper footing, 
and, if the doctrine in question be really absurd or 
impossible, let us abandon, as an imposture, the re- 
ligion which so authoritatively declares it. 

For let it not be pretended that the conventional 
use of language has, in these respects, been changed 
by the encroachments of later superstition; that 
terms which were familiarly employed and under- 
stood by the ancients as rhetorical and figurative 
only, have since been erroneously received in a 
literal sense among those platonic Jews or Chris- 
tians, by whom the venerable stream of truth has 
been troubled and polluted in its middle channel. 
It would, in the first place, have been not unrea- 
sonable to expect that, in an inspired discourse, no 
metaphor would have been adopted, which was cal- 
culated, in the times immediately succeeding its 
delivery, to afford a reasonable ground for pervad- 
ing and universal error. But, secondly, so long as 
we can trace the opinions of the ancient Jews at 
all, we know that the word angel or spirit must 
have conveyed to their ears precisely the same 
meaning which it now conveys to ours ; and that, if 
the opinion be erroneous, no method could have 
been devised more effectual for the propagation and 
perpetuation of error than that which the authors 
of Scripture have, in this instance, followed. 

TOL. I. H 



50 SERMON III. 

Nor can it be said that it was an error so harm- 
less in its consequences as to be left by God to find 
its level in the gradual progress of the human mind, 
and in the eventual triumph of those philosophical 
interpretations with which it is the boast of our 
antagonists to have illustrated the Sacred Volume. 
However blameless and comfortable in itself, and in 
its necessary results, the doctrine of intermediate 
spirits is prone to abuses of the most mischievous 
character. It has been made in every age and coun- 
try the main spring and parent of idolatry, from the 
schamanism of Siberia, to the polytheism of Greece 
and Rome, and the more modern but not more 
excusable superstitions of the Romish Christians. 
Two-thirds of the Old Testament are taken up with 
endeavours to reclaim the people to whom it was 
addressed from the superstitious reverence of 
creatures : and it has been ingeniously suggested by 
Chrysostom and Athanasius, that Moses has omitted 
to describe the creation of angels, lest the splen- 
dours of such a theogony should have tended to 
confirm his countrymen in the homage which they 
were too prone to pay to the spirits of the air, and 
the host of heaven.* 

But if Moses spake less of the angels than he 
otherwise might have done, to avoid giving a handle 
to idolatry, would he not, a fortiori^ if the angels 
had been fabulous, have avoided the mention of 
them at all ? Would it not have been a stronger 

* Chrysost. 1. Horn, in Gen. torn. i. p. 81. Athans. Quest, 
iv. ad Antioch, torn. iii. p. 33.S. 



ON THE MINISTRY OF GOOD ANGELS. 51 

argument than any which he has advanced against 
the worship of the host of Heaven, if he had assured 
his followers that no such host as they dreamed of 
existed ? Was it not as easy for Elisha to express 
his trust in the general providence and protection 
of God, as to employ expressions obviously calcu- 
lated to promote a popular error, and then to pray 
for a miracle by which that error might be con- 
firmed ? It was a sublime expression of Moham- 
med, (whether prompted by a lofty enthusiasm, or 
by a deep and daring hypocrisy) when reminded by 
Abubeker, in the cave of Thor, that they were only 
two against a multitude : " There is a third with 
us, even God." But how different is this from the 
words of Jehovah's prophet, and from that vision of 
fiery warriors to which he appealed, in proof that 
more were on his side than against him ? 

But it is at the tribunal of human reason that the 
doctrine of angels is next arraigned ; and even here 
the orthodox Christian has no cause to decline the 
contest. It will, in the first place, indeed, be readily 
allowed that neither the existence nor the ser- 
vices of angels can be, in the smalliest degree, need- 
ful to the felicity or the providence of the Infinitely 
Wise and Mighty ; but it is a very weak and faulty 
inference which proceeds to tell us, that because 
He does not need, He, therefore, has not created, 
and will not employ them. " Deus," in the language 
of the schools, " non ope indiget ullius creaturae."' 
But who will, therefore, deny that the works of God 
are manifold and wonderful, and that fi'om all His 



52 SERMON III. 

reasonable creatures He requires rational praise and 
duty ?* 

Nor since, in by far the greater part of those 
daily dispensations of His providence of which we 
can trace the progress, and of which we are our- 
selves, in no small degree, the instruments ; since, 
in all these, the wisdom or the folly of mankind are 
advisedly or bhndly agents for the accomphshment 
of His will, can it be inconsistent to apprehend that 
the invisible things of His creation may be in like 
manner administered, under Himself by beings 
adapted for such an office, and that many of the 
events of life, and many of the phenomena of na- 
ture may be produced by hands which we cannot 
see, and labours which, as He directs, He can only 
appreciate. 

That there may be countless rational creatures 
in the universe besides mankind, and superior in 
happiness and intellect to man in his present con- 
dition, will be hardly denied by those who recollect 
how very small a portion of that universe is occu- 
pied by man, and who believe that man himself has 
reason to anticipate a removal after death into a 
higher order of existence. It is surely not unrea- 
sonable in man, thus circumstanced, to conjecture 
that the happiness which he hopes for himself is 
not without a precedent in the works of his Hea- 
venly Benefactor ; that other beings, whether at 

* Ou 6srTai, says Thcodoret, rwv ujulvouvtwv 6 AstfcroT'/jj ©sog, — 
^i' dya&OTrircx, (5s fAovyjv xai dyyeXotg xai ^A^ayysXoig xal cratfji t»! 
xTiVsi TO slvai dsSCi^YiTai. — Theod. CiusBst. IV. in Genes. 



ON THE MINISTRY OF GOOD ANGELS. 53 

lirst so framed by Infinite Love, or admitted to such 
privileges after a previous state of trial, are, even 
now, in the situation to which we aspire, our elder 
brethren in immortality, and that a part of their 
happiness may consist in those habits which are, 
of all others, most proper to constitute the fehcity 
of a reasonable creature, in expressing their grati- 
tude to the common Parent of all, and in works of 
love and mercy to us who are as yet their inferiors. 
But this, in few words, is ail which we beheve of 
angels, and this is precisely the degree of informa- 
tion which the Scriptures communicate respecting 
them. 

To the objection which arises from the forms and 
circumstances under which those angels have ap- 
peared who have revealed themselves to mortal 
eyes, it would be, perhaps, enough to answer, that 
as we know nothing, or next to nothing, of the na- 
ture of these celestial strangers, it is impossible for 
us to determine whether they are devoid of any 
appropriate form, or what form or ornaments may 
best become their situation. But though we should 
allow, as is most probable, that the white robes and 
fiery armour of the seraphim are assumed as con- 
descensions to the weakness of mankind, and no 
less illusive than the apparatus of mortal majesty 
and dominion through which, in the visions of His 
prophets, the Almighty Himself has shadowed His 
unapproachable glories, yet in the one case as rea- 
sonably as in the other, a substratum of reality may 
be insisted on. Our antagonists will not deny, that 



54 SERMON III. 

it was the true and living God who, from His bright 
and overshadowing cloud, bore testimony to His 
beloved Son on the mount of transfiguration. Yet 
God is no more like a cloud than His attendants 
are like mortal warriors ; and He who, in the first 
instance, has seen fit to " make His angels spirits," 
may, with equal propriety, send them forth on a 
worthy occasion under the hkeness of ** flaming 
fire."* 

As, indeed, I am disputing with those who pro- 
fess themselves Christians, and who, though they 
suppose the angels who have appeared to be illu- 
sions, yet acknowledge them to be illusions sent by 
God, and intended as proofs of His presence and 
protection; I would ask them what they mean by 
an illusion sent from God, through which God 
speaks His will to mankind, and yet which is an 
illusion only, and not personally distinct from God. 
Is not this God Himself assuming a particular form, 
declaring, in the likeness of a cloud, a fire, a man 
in long hnen garments, or a being with six wings, 
and four faces. His power and His gracious pleasure."^ 
But whence comes it, then, that the persons thus 
described have spoken of themselves as " sent" by 
God, as acting under God's authority, as His ser- 
vants, yea, and the fellow-servants of them " that 
have the testimony of Jesus ?"t There are those, 
indeed, but they do not fall within the list of crea- 
ted nature : there are those to whom the name 

* Psalm. CIV 4. f Rev. xix. 10. 



ON THE MINISTRY OF GOOD ANGELS. 55 

both of angel and God may be applied with equal 
propriety. And when the Word of God, the Angel 
of the Covenant appeared in the bush to Moses, 
and to Abraham under the oak of Mamre*, how 
different were His claims to reverence, and how 
much greater his tone of authority than those ordi- 
nary messengers of Heaven dared assume, who are 
sent forth to minister to the meaner heirs of salva- 
tion. ''Put off thy shoes from off thy feet," said 
the Vision in Horeb, "for the place whereon thou 
standest is holy ground."t " See thou do it not," 
were the words of the angel when St. John bowed 
down before him; " I am thy fellow-servant ; wor- 
ship God." J But if this last were God, what higher 
name than God shall we find out for the former, or, 
if both were the same Being differently manifested, 
wherefore so great a distinction between the ho- 
nours which were at these different times to be paid 
toHim.?* 

The meaning then of Scripture in these passages, 
its obvious and only meaning, is estabhshed, I trust, 
beyond the reach of cavil. That this meaning is 
consistent with the attributes of God, the analogy 
of His creation, and the course of His providence in 
those things which are objects of our daily experi- 
ence, may be regarded as also proved. And no 
reason remains why professed believers in Chris- 
tianity should not consider the doctrine as certain, 

* Gen. xviii. 1. Exod. iii. 2. t Exod. iii. 5. 

± Rev. xxii. 9. 



56 SERMON III. 

and proceed to inquire, with the caution and reve- 
rence which such investigations demand, what that 
is which is communicated to us in Scripture con- 
cerning the power, the numbers, and the ministry 
of these blessed and immortal creatures. 

The power of God's angels might have been rea- 
sonably presumed to be great, even if we knew no 
more of them than their dignity, their immortality, 
and their invisibility. Of those who are placed, 
comparatively, so near to the fountain head of Might 
and Majesty, who stand in the presence of God as 
ministers to execute His commands, we are natu- 
rally inclined to form a high and reverential opinion, 
as the first fruits and flowers of creation, and the 
most adorned with every gift which the Author of 
good things dispenses to the objects of His favour. 
Concentrating in their minds the experience of 
many thousand years, we may conceive them dart- 
ing from their high vantage ground a comprehen- 
sive glance through all the kingdoms of nature, 
understanding, so far as a finite being can under- 
stand, the ways of that Providence of which they 
are in part the agents, and in God's own strength, 
and the might of His name, unwearied and irresist- 
ible, planting their footsteps in the deep, and in the 
clouds fulfilling His word. In the very notion, in- 
deed, of an invisible power, there is something which 
affords a very awful subject of meditation, and 
which (hke to the mechanical effect produced on the 
mind by darkness) affects us with an impression of 
reverence not unmixed with fear. The strength 



ON THE MINISTRY OF GOOD ANGELS. 57 

which we cannot appreciate, the blows of which we 
cannot parry, and which may wound without our 
distinguishing the hand that smote us, is from this 
very obscurity more dreaded and, in itself, more 
formidable. Nor when we reflect on the possibility 
of our being surrounded by evil as well as invisible 
agents, can we fail to appreciate the value of such 
defenders as are fully able, in God's name, to pro- 
tect us from spiritual malice, and to thank Him that 
there are not only mightier but more on our side 
than against us. 

But it is not on conjecture only that we are au- 
thorised to build this opinion. They are Ukened 
in Scripture to fire for their purity, their swiftness 
and their formidable power. "The mighty," "the 
kings," " the angels which excel in strength," are 
among the titles most frequently given to them ; 
and, above all, more than a single passage may be 
found where they are called by the still more awful 
and extraordinary name of " the gods ;" D^*l7K. 

That their numbers are great might have been 
inferred from the single fact of that mighty army 
which was assembled on the hill of Dothan. But 
here also we have express testimony, in the word 
of God, to the twenty thousand angelic chariots 
whom the inspired poet, David, beheld encamping 
round Mount Zion ; to the twelve legions, whose 
fiery swords would have been drawn at the word of 
the Messiah ; to the " thousand thousands, and ten 
thousand times ten thousand," whom Daniel saw 
standing before the Ancient of Days ; and to the 

VOL. I. I 



58 SERMON III. 

multitude, to express which excelled the power of 
the apostle of the Revelations, when he beheld them 
standing on the sea of glass, and around the ever- 
lasting throne, and ascribing (in that hymn, of which 
all nature swelled the chorus) " Power, riches, wis- 
dom, strength, honour, glory, and blessing, to the 
Lamb that was slain."^' 

To the nature of their ministry the testimonies 
are still more explicit and numerous. For greatly 
do those men wrong the zeal, and greatly do they 
undervalue the happiness of angels who dream that 
the first is suffered to evaporate in incense and 
adoration, and never-ending minstrelsy, or that the 
second consists in luxurious ease alone amid the 
groves of Paradise or the splendours of the empyrean. 
Heaven has, no less than earth, its active duties ; 
the blessedness of Heaven is an useful and ener- 
getic blessedness; and they who are sometimes 
painted as feasting in the kingdom and enjoying 
the presence of their Maker, are at others described 
as engaged in battle with the great dragon and 
his adherents, as stopping, in the cause of the 
saints, the mouths of hons, and subduing the vio- 
lence of fire, as keeping guard round the prophets 
of the Lord, apd as bearers of His orders to them ; 
q,s ministering to the Son of God after his tempta- 

* Psal. Ixviii. 17. Matt. xxvi. 53. Dan. vii. 10. Rev. v. 12. 
It is a striking suggestion of Ambrose (p. 1748), that as the 
sheep which was lost was but a hundredth part of the flock, the 
collective descendants of Adam may be supposed to bear the 
isame proportion to the spirits who have kept their integrity. 



ON THE MINISTRY OF GOOD ANGELS. 59 

tion, and in the hour of His mortal agony consoUng 
and sustaining Him ; as anxious and exulting wit- 
nesses of the progress of His Kingdom upon earth ; 
as calhng the Gentile Cornelius to be the first fruits 
of Christian adoption ; as smiting with an invisible 
sword the arrogant and persecuting Herod, and 
breaking down before the apostle Peter the chains 
and gates of his captivity. 

Nor is it only in these more conspicuous and 
supernatural dispensations of the Almighty that we 
may trace the agency of His messengers. It is 
indeed, as I apprehend, an unauthorised opinion 
which assigns to the nations of the world each one 
its tutelary governor ; or which allots a separate 
genius to each believer with the name and com- 
mission of a guardian. But of some one or more 
celestial spirits (if our hearts be right with God) 
we are assured that we shall obtain the protection. 
And do not those hearts burn within us when we 
read of these mighty beings minghng in the con- 
verse, assuming the forms, and partaking of the 
hospitality of mortals ; when we learn that not a 
sinner repents on earth but the angels rejoice in 
Heaven; that the celestial warriors encamp not 
only round the houses of the prophets, but around 
the person and property of every servant of the 
Almighty; that even the weakest and humblest 
believer is an object of interest to those who are 
themselves privileged to behold the face of the 
Heavenly Father ; and that the death-bed struggle 
ended (and who knows how greatly their unseen 



60 . SERMON III. 

presence may support us under it ?) it is they who 
carry the soul of the humblest saint to Paradise ? 

All these things are written for our instruction ! 
It is to little purpose that we occupy our minds, 
or amuse our fancies by speculations on the num- 
ber and dignity of these invisible warriors, if it is 
not at the same time impressed upon our hearts 
and our conduct, that the eyes of such as these 
pursue us into our most secret retirements ; that 
they who rejoice in our repentance must also blush 
with indignation at our sins ; and that if we desire 
their vicinity and protection, it behoves us that our 
daily practices be such as an angel may not feel 
pain in witnessing. 

MsTa/Sa/vojiasv ivrsvkv, let US depart hence, said the 
m visible guardian of the Jewish Temple, when the 
provocations of that infatuated race w^ere about to 
receive their punishment;* but woe, eternal w^oe 
to that nation or individual from whom the angels 
of God turn away as from a polluted thing, the 
habitation, thenceforth, of dragons, and the cage 
of every unclean and every hateful power ! 

Nor, secondly, when we contemplate the un- 
wearied activity in the service of God, the match- 
less condescension to the necessities of their younger 
brethren by which these high and holy spirits are 
distinguished among the creatures of God : when 
we behold the rulers of the elements keeping guard' 
in a sick man's chamber, the inhabitants of God's 

* Joseplius Bell. Judaic. iV. 5. 



ON THE MINISTRY OF GOOD ANGELS. 61 

presence protecting the slumbers of a child, the 
gods themselves (for such, as we have seen, the 
inspired wTiters are not afraid to call them) con- 
ducting the soul of a beggar to the bosom of peace 
and happiness,* how deeply must we be affected 
with the necessity of those devotions which even 
angels are required to pay, with the dignity of 
those works of love and mercy in which the angels 
find their chief emplo}Tiient ? Yea, more, it is an 
examination on which it behoves us seriously to 
enter, though it is an examination in which the 
best and boldest of us all can hardly proceed with- 
out alarm, how far the present tenour of our actions , 
and our thoughts as men, are suitable to that hope 
which we entertain, through Christ, of being re- 
ceived among the angels hereafter ? And, when 
we reflect how little the uncleanness and excess, 
the pride and avarice, the indolence and self-indul- 
gence of mankind can accord with the circumstances 
and employments of the spiritual servants of the 
Almighty, we may be induced to shun more cau- 
tiously the sins by which we are led astray, to per- 
ceive more clearly the dangers of our natural con- 
dition, and more earnestly to seek His help, in whose 
name alone the angels are become our friends, and 
of whose grace only it cometh that His will is done 
either m earth or in Heaven. 

And, lastly, since, in the creation of God, the 
number of his faithful servants is thus great and 

* Luke xvi. 22, 



(52 SERMON III. 

infinite, how wretched, even on their own principles 
of action, does the folly of those men appear, who, 
against their better knowledge, against their habi- 
tual feeling, and in defiance of their secret and 
reasonable fears, surrender the hopes of virtue and 
piety, without attaining the brief happiness of vice, 
and follow what they esteem "the multitude to 
do evil !" I will not ask them to weigh the real 
importance, I will not entreat them to count the 
real numbers of those whose idle mockery they so 
greatly dread, whose applause they prefer to their 
own peace of mind,andthe approbation, through life, 
of the truly wise and estimable. But, even if the 
preponderance of the public feeling were not, as it 
is on the whole, in league with consistent virtue ; 
if the case were actually what they now persuade 
themselves, and they, and a few hke them, were 
alone in an apostate world, we have no reason to 
apprehend that this world itself is among the most 
populous parts of God's creation, and if the virtuous 
man were really opposed in his practice^aod princi- 
ples to all his fellow mortals, there would still be 
more with him than with them. They are not the 
minority who devote themselves to the service, and 
submit themselves to the reproach of their Re- 
deemer. His flock may seem hi the world which 
now is, " a little one," but " other sheep there are 
whicl' are not of this fold ;"* and when the seats are 
full in the marriage supper of the Lord, and when 

■' St. John X. 16. 



ON THE MINISTRY OF GOOD ANGELS. 63 

the new Heaven and new earth in which dwelleth 
righteousness, have received, in the day of His 
power, their holy and happy multitude, we shall 
understand how few in comparison have been the 
clamorous adversaries which, in this life, disturbed 
our repose ; how blind the cowardice which, with 
the angels on our side, would have turned back in 
the day of battle ! 



SERMON IV. 



ON THE EXISTENCE AND INFLUENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 

[Preached before the University of Oxford 
and at Lincohi's Inn, 1822.] 



EpHEs.vi. 11, 12. 

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may he able to stand 
against the wiles of the Devil. For we wrestle not against 
flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, 
against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiri- 
tual wickedness in high places. 

It was an usual practice with St. Paul to describe 
the profession of a Christian, under the likeness of 
a soldier on duty, and, by allusions to the oath, 
dress, and discipline of the Roman military, to sha- 
dow out the several obligations, and graces, and 
privileges which distinguish and support the fol- 
lower of Jesus Christ in his warfare with the ene- 
mies of his salvation. The whole of the passage 
from which these words are taken, is pervaded by 
this kind of allegory. In it he expects the Ephe- 
sian disciples to prepare themselves for this holy 
quarrel, as soldiers for tiie battle, or gladiators for 
the arena, nnd to case their souls in the panoply of 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. (35 

Heaven against the force or fraud of their oppo- 
nents. The nature of this armour he explains in 
the following verses, in which he compares, with 
great liveliness of fancy and description, the entire 
equipment of an ancient warrior, with the graces 
and virtues of a worthy follower of the Messiah. 
To the helmet of the first he likens that exalted 
hope of salvation which is, to the latter, a defence 
and a crown. The impenetrable breast-plate of 
the soldier corresponds with the righteousness and 
good conscience of the saint; the iron-studded 
sandal of the one with that Gospel of peace which 
prevents the foot of the other from sliding ; and 
the shield, which it was death to forsake, and the 
sword which was, in closer fight, the Roman's only 
weapon, with that faith from which even fiery 
darts fall blunted and powerless, and with that 
knowledge of God's word, the edge of which no 
sophistry can withstand. 

To point out, as it deserves, the beauty of this 
parallel, is not my present purpose. It is enough 
to observe, first, that those powers and graces are 
called God's armour, inasmuch as we derive them 
from God's free bounty; and, secondly, that the 
danger must needs be great against which so great 
precautions are enjoined us. 

While describing that danger, the utterance of 
the Apostle almost seems to labour for words suffi- 
ciently strong to express the strength of his con- 
ceptions, and the most awful figures of might, and 
malice, and mystery, are collected to alarm us into 

VOL. I. K 



(>0 SERMON IV. 

watchfulness. Principalities and powers are leagued 
acjainst the soldier of the cross, and the believer 
has to contend against the united violence of the 
rulers of this world's darkness, and the spiritual 
wickedness which is in high places. High sound- 
ing words these, doubtless, are, and tremendous 
attributes of guilt and power ; and it must deeply 
concern every one of us to understand their mean- 
ing rightly. To arrive at that meaning it may, in 
the first place, be observed, that all these terms 
are evidently employed by the Apostle in explana- 
tion of a phrase which he had used in the foregoing 
sentence, and which he had more briefly assigned 
as the reason why we should betake ourselves with- 
out delay to our celestial weapons. " Put on the 
Avhole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand 
against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle," 
he continues, '• not against flesh and blood, but 
against principahties, against powers, against the 
rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiri- 
tual wickedness in high places." It is plain, there- 
iore, that the enemy with whose wiles we have to 
contend, is the same with those who are spoken of 
under the several names of " principalities," pow- 
ers," and " rulers," and that these several antago- 
nists are included under the same term of " the 
devil ;" cither because " devil" is a generic name 
which applies to their whole multitude, or because 
these principalities and powers are the subjects and 
soldiers of one powerful and malicious being, to 
whom the name of •• devil" is peculiarly, and bv 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 67 

way of eminence assigned ; who lays wait, by their 
agency, for the souls of men, and who directs and 
stimulates their craft and violence in the manner 
most likely to destroy or injure us. 

By which of these suppositions we explain the 
words of St. Paul, is a matter of indifference ; the 
consequences deducible from either are, in all their 
bearings, the same, and either is consistent with 
the application of this particular passage, and with 
the general terms of the Gospel. It is certain that 
the term " devil," or " wicked one," is often applied 
inclusively and generally to very many beings, who 
are represented as in perpetual hostility with God 
and good men; and it is also certain that these 
beings are described as under the government of 
one particular prince, whose angels they are, and 
with whom they are, hereafter, to be punished 
everlastingly.* 

* St. Matthew xii. 26. St. Mark iii. 26. St. Luke xi. 18. Grotius 
ad Marc. " Satanas videtur mihi hoc loco dici, iota universitas 
malorum spirituum, quomodo 6 a.v&^oi'n'og (homo) pro genere hit- 
mano aut natura humana. Non enim solus Princeps Spirituum 
sed omnes impuri spiritus eo nomine censentur." In conformity 
with this interpretation, St. Chrysostom observes that Christ did 
not use a plural term when speaking of the devils on the above 
occasion, but called them under one name Satan, to express the 
union which subsists among them, ovx slits rovg Sai^ovocg, Ssixvvg 
-roXXigv auroTg 'tt'^o^ aXkr^Xovi Cufxtpojviav outfav. Archbishop Sharpe's 
Sermons, v. 3. p. 72. " When we are speaking of the devil, 
we are not to understand any one particular being, or any one 
particular evil spirit, but the whole aggregate or company of 
evil spirits, which inhabit round about us in the lower regions of 



d8 SKRMON IV, 

A more important question, and one to which, 
for many reasons, it behoves us to be able to give 
an answer, is that which relates to the real nature 
of the enemies thus described. Are we to under- 
stand these alarming expressions in the plainest 
and most obvious sense, as instructing us that we 
are really surrounded by invisible foes ; by beings 
superior to mankind in present power, but who envy 
mankind their hopes of future glory, and endeavour, 
in concert with each other, and in obedience to a 
common leader, to pervert our integrity, and de- 
stroy our happiness ? Or are we rather to under- 
stand by the principalities here alluded to, those 
men who fight for, and forward the cause of Satan 
upon earth ; those deceivers who would entice, and 
those persecutors who would terrify the Christian 
from his Heaven-ward journey ? Shall we go farther 
still, and deny the existence of the wicked power 
that these enemies are said to serve? Is it only 
by a figure that they are represented as subject to 
one commander? Is that commander no more 
than an allegorical and abstract name for all which, 
in the visible world, opposes the estabhshment and 
progress of Christ's kingdom; an imaginary evil 

the air. All these are, in the Scripture language, and in common 
speech, called by the name of the devil." That, nevertheless, 
there is one person peculiarly, and by way of eminence, thus 
called, as the general of a hostile army is called " the enemy,'> 
is plain from St. Matt. xxv. 41. Rev. xii. 9. "Inter impuros 
spiritus unum esse qui pra3sideat ct Judajorum et Apostolorum 
scripta nos doccnt." (irotius on St. Matt. xii. 24. 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 69 

principle invented to terrify the weak and ignorant -, 
or at best, to represent, by a forcible metaphor, 
the regularity of concert, of purpose, and of tactics, 
with which, hke an army under a skilful leader, 
our various enemies pursue their unlioly warfare ? 

Of these three hypotheses, the first and the se- 
cond are, I admit, extremely consistent with each 
other. A man may beheve, to the fullest extent, 
in the existence of evil spirits, though he may sup- 
pose that the principalities and powers here men- 
tioned are not spirits, but the mortal and persecu- 
ting governors of the Roman empire, and of the 
Jewish synagogue. He may admit the general 
doctrine, while he denies that this particular text 
inculcates it. But though the first and the second 
be thus compatible, yet are the first and the third 
hypotheses completely irreconcileable with each 
other. It is difiicult for a professed Christian to 
deny the existence of evil spirits, if he admits that 
the present words of St. Paul are to be interpreted 
of them ; it is impossible for a reasonable man to 
deny the existence of a devil, when he allows that 
there are many ; and it would be mere idleness, the 
existence of such creatures being established, to 
cavil at the account given us in Scripture, of their 
nature and the form of their government. 

The text, therefore, which I have chosen, is ex- 
tremely important in determining a question which 
has of late years arisen among Christians, concern- 
ing the existence of that person, or those persons, 
to whose influence is ascribed so large a portion of 



70 SERMON IV. 

the sin and misery which, in our present state, sur- 
round us. I say, it is of late years that this con- 
troversy has arisen ; because it is certain that, du- 
ring more than 1700 years the Christian world, 
(however otherwise divided,) had on this point no 
difference of opinion. Even of that sect whose 
leaders have, in our own times, embraced with the 
greatest warmth the negative side of the contro- 
versy, the earlier doctors never questioned the ex- 
istence of evil spirits in general, or of the evil one 
peculiarly so called ; and Socinus and Crelhus, and 
the other commentators of the Racovian school, 
have received and maintained the doctrine of the 
devil and his angels, not only without qualification, 
but apparently without suspecting that any qualifi- 
cation of it was possible.* 

This is not, indeed, the only nor the most import- 
ant instance in which the modern Enghsh unita- 
rians have outstripped, in the race of unbelief, their 
more learned or more cautious masters ; but it is 
an additional proof that, the rule once transgressed 
which binds us to adhere to the obvious sense of 

* Socinus ad Def. F. Puccii Resp. Op. torn. ii. p. 324, et alibi 
passim. Crellius, Comm. in 1 Cor. Op. torn. i. p. 359. "Paii- 
lus, cum de Cliristianorum hominum pugna loquitur, non obscure 
carnem et sanguinem opponit spiritibus malis, quibuscum nobis 
est luctandum, Eph. vi. 12." Id. torn. i. p. 50. 52, et alibi pas- 
sim. Schlichting, ad h. 1. Op. p. 172. Wolzogen, tom. i. p. 400. 
Przicpovius, ad h. 1. Op. p. 152, 153. Brennius, Not. in St. Matt, 
p. 5. Not. in Ephes. ad h. 1. p. .66. Catechism. Eccl. Polon. 
p. 338. " Nee hominibus tantum, verum etiam angelis et bonis 
et malis Christus dominatur." 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 71 

Scripture, no reasonable limit can be anticipated 
to that tide of allegory which will then enter in ; 
no doctrine, no fact be conceived, which the same 
process may not resolve into fable. 

But however modern the objection, and however 
its recent date may be fairly urged as an argument 
against its probability, yet is the fact that an objec- 
tion has been made to the usual doctrine of the 
Church on this subject, a sufficient reason for exa- 
mining with greater care the grounds on which 
that doctrine rests. It is, indeed, but vain to conceal 
the truth from ourselves, that, partly from the na- 
tural disposition of men to confine their views 
within the limits of the visible world ; partly from 
disgust at those monstrous and abominable foUies 
with which priestcraft and superstition have, at dif- 
ferent times, abused the notion of spiritual agency ; 
and partly, perhaps, through the arts of Satan him- 
self, who may expect to ensnare us with the greater 
ease when his influence is unsuspected, the notion 
of evil spirits has fallen into discredit and disre- 
gard with many who are far, indeed, from disbehev- 
ing or fi'om disobeying the Gospel, but who might 
have derived, from the contemplation of this truth, 
yet stronger motives to Christian watchfiilness, and 
a, yet deeper sense of their dependence on Him 
who alone can deliver us from the evil one. 

From this cause I have midertaken the discussion 
of the text which has been read to you, and will 
proceed to consider the interpretation which has 
been already shghtlv noticed, and ^vhicli reorards 



72 t^ERMON IV. 

the enemies enumerated by St. Paul as mortal ene^ 
mies only. And here it will be readily acknow- 
ledged that many of the words employed by him 
to denote their power and dignity, are by no means 
inapplicable to the potentates of the visible world. 
" Principatus," and " potestates," the correspond- 
ing Latin terms to 'A^a/ and 'Elouc/a* are the well- 
known and technical names for the supreme 
and delegated authorities of the Roman empire. 
'^ The rulers of the world's darkness," is a phrase 
which has been thought to apply with much pro- 
priety either to the rabbins of the corrupt and dark-* 
ened synagogue, or to those heathen priests and 
false philosophers, whose dominion was erected on 
the ignorance and superstition of mankind. And 
the number of sects, and of perverse and wicked 
doctrines which, even in the age of the Apostles, 
had begun to infest the Church, has been conceived 
to tally with the description of " spiritual wicked- 
ness in high (or heavenly) places."* But these 
presumptions are, I conceive, greatly overbalanced 
by what may be urged against them. First, we are 
told by the Apostle, that the " wresthng" of which 
he speaks, is, " not against flesh and blood," an ex- 
pression which he could not have used had his de- 
scription been intended to apply to the fleshly sove- 

* Siieton. Cal. 22. " Nee multum abfuit quin statim diadema 
sumeret, spcciemquc principatus in regni Ibrmam converteret." 
.luv. Sat. X. 99. " Hujus, qui trahitur, praetextam sumere mavis, 
An Fidcnarum Gabioruniquc esse Potesfas?^^ Wolf, ad h. 1. 
('m\ Philol. torn. iv.p. 150, 151. ►Schottgen. Hor. Hebr. p. 790. 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 73 

reigns of mankind, or to the acts of any mortal ad- 
versary. It is true that some commentators of no 
vulgar name have conceived that " flesh and blood" 
may signify " men of mean condition," as opposed 
to " men of rank and power ;" or " the ignorant," 
as opposed to " the learned."* But to pass over 
the apparent absurdity of distinguishing degrees of 
rank or acquirement by terms which apply equally 
to the tyrant and his slave, the doctor and his dis- 
ciple, no ancient author has been found (I might 
say no author of any age or country,) who has 
used the terms in question as these persons would 
have us understand them. The Jewdsh writers (with 
whom the phrase is one of frequent occurrence, 
and whose authority on such points cannot but be 
considerable with all such as consider who St. Paul 
was, and to whom the greater part cf his Epistles 
were addressed) the Jewish writers always, so far 
as I have been able to discover, employ them in the 
sense of " mortal man," or to express the weak- 
ness of our common nature.f And, still more, there 

* Wolf, ubi. supr. Schottgen, ubi supr. 

t Hammond on St. Matt. xvi. 17. Works, vol. iii. p. 83. 
•' The phrase Ca^f xri alika flesh and blood, is a Hebrew phrase, 
01^ *1^^ signifying no more than a mere man here upon the 
earth, one that hath ascended no higher than the common state 
of men. Thus it is ordinary in the Jewish writers. Take one 
example for all, in Gemara Babyl. ad Cod. Berachoth, where a 
parable of a rich man (the first draught as it were and mono- 
gram of that which is enlarged and filled up with lively colours 
by our Saviour,inSt.Lukexvi.is called *171oS S^D D"!*) 1t2^2 
a parable of a king of flesh and blood : that is, of a human 



74 J:?ERMON lY. 

are many passages in the New Testament itseli 
where these words cannot be explained in any other 
sense than that of the universal human family. 

Thus, when Christ told St. Peter that " flesh and 
blood" did not reveal to him the fact of his Master's 
Divinity, can we suppose that He intended to insi- 
nuate (what was certainly not the case) that the 
Apostle had learned it from the wealthy or the wise 
of this world ? When St. Paul assures us, that in 
the commencement of his preaching, he " applied 
not himself to flesh and blood," does he mean that 
it was not from the vulgar or the poor that he 
sought a commission to teach the Gospel ? The 
time may seem lost which is spent in enlarging on 
a fact so plain ; but the fact, I am bold to say, is 
decisive in itself against the manhood or mortality 
of those enemies whom the Apostle sends us forth 
to combat. 

But, secondly, it is indeed very true, that the 
words which we translate " principalities and 
powers," were titles of human authority ; and it is 
also highly probable that they were transferred from 
the events of this world to the language which men 
employed in speaking of celestial dignities. But it 

mortal king here on earth. This example completely over- 
throws Schottgen's notion, who brings, indeed, not a single 
instance m favom* of it. To the instance adduced by Hammond, 
may be added Beresch. Rabba, § 4. f. 6. " Rex carnis et san- 
guinis edificat palatium et laquearia facit lapidibus, lignis, pul- 
vere. Deus autem mundi laquearia non nisi ex aqua fecit."— 
►^0 also in § 49, and in many other places. 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 75 

IS certain, on the other hand, that they are most 
frequently appUed in the New Testament to some 
particular ranks of spiritual creatures. That they 
are applied to good angels, and (if the expression 
may be allowed) to the constituted authorities of 
Heaven, the following passages will shew. In the 
first chapter of this same Epistle to the Ephesians,* 
our Lord is described as set at God's " right hand 
in the heavenly places, far above all principality 
and power, and might, and dominion, and every 
name that is named, not only in this world, but also 
in that which is to come." Again, in a catalogue 
of those beings who were made by God through 
His Son, we find "things that are in Heaven, and 
that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether 
they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or 
powers."t But it would have been a grievous 
anti-climax in the former sentence, after describing 
our Lord as set at God's right hand in Heaven, to 
have added that, thus exalted, he was higher than 
the emperor of Rome, or the provincial governor 
of Asia; and it would have been utterly prepos- 
terous, in recounting the visible and invisible works 
of creation, to reckon as distinct species those few 
individuals who are only distinguished from the 
weakness and misery of their fellows by a purple 
garment and a circle of gold. I do not praise, I will 
not even justify, the vain curiosity of those specu- 
lative men who have pretended to describe the titles 
and precedence of the court of Heaven, no less mi- 

* Ephes. i. 20, 21. t Coloss. i. 16. 



76 SERMON IV. 

nutely than the formaUties of the Byzantine palace. 
But that there is some difference of rank among the 
sons of God, may be inferred from the different re- 
wards assigned to the different servants in the para- 
ble of the talents ; from our Saviom*'s assurance 
that some should be great and others inferior in His 
kingdom; and from the manner in which, as we 
have seen, St. Paul affixes names expressive of gra- 
dations in rank to individuals or classes of the an- 
gelic hierarchy. And as, the fact being true, the 
names employed were indifferent, no names could 
be more proper than those which were already ap- 
plied no less familiarly to angels than to men, by 
the Jewish and Grecian Christians.* 

Nor were they the chieftains of the faithful che- 
rubim only, who were designated by the ancients 
under titles corresponding with those of earth. The 
devils, as well as the attendants on the Divine Ma- 
jesty, were believed to be under regular discipline; 
and either to have retained these marks of distinc- 
tion in memory of their first estate, or to have as- 
sumed them in fruitless emulation of the honours 
which God bestows on the leaders of the angelic 
army. The corresponding terms of " princes " and 
'' prefects " of the devils, are of very frequent occur- 
rence in the Rabbinical authors.f The name of 
'' prince" is assigned by the Jews in St. Matthew's 
Gospelf to him whom they call Beelzebub, and, 



* Schleusner's Lexicon, vor. Ai^vaim-ig. 
t bVhbttgen, Hor. Hebr. p. 882. ^ St. Matt. ix. 84. 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 77 

what is still more to the purpose, St. Paul himself 
complies with, and apparently sanctions, this form 
of speaking, by using the very names in question 
under circumstances where evil spirits only can be 
intended. 

When, in his Epistle to the Romans,* he boasts 
that no created thing can separate us from the love 
which is in Christ, he enumerates, among the cir- 
cumstances by which our continuance in that love 
is endangered, the malignant endeavours of " an- 
gels, principalities, and powers." They are " prin- 
cipalities" and "powers" which Christ is said to 
have " spoiled and made a show of" in His glorious 
triumph over death and hell.t But, how cold is 
that exposition which would resolve these glowing 
descriptions into an allegorical account of the su- 
perseding of the Mosaic Law, by which our Lord 
reduced its rulers and scribes to insignificance and 
obscurity? Or why should we hesitate to con- 
clude that, as in these passages, so also in my text, 
St. Paul is speaking of those rebeUious angels, 
whose chief aspired to tempt the Son of God, and 
whose armies, like roaring lions, range about, seek- 
ing whom they may devour? 

No less familiarly appUed to evil spirits are the 
terms, "rulers of this world" and "of darkness," 
The very name of xotf/xAx^arw^, under this meaning, 
is usual and technical with the Rabbins ; and it is 
hard to say how, with their known and pre-con- 

=' Rom. viii. 38, 39. t Coloss. ii. 15. 



78 SERMON IV. 

ceived opinions of demons and their residence, the 
persons whom St. Paul addressed could understand 

<ra -Trvsujaarjjca rrjg 'jfovy]^iag iv roTg s-ffou^aviois any Otherwise 

than of " the spirits of wickedness in the air."* 

The text, accordingly, in its literal and obvious 
meaning, can only be supposed to refer to spiritual 
enemies. And it is almost needless to bring to your 
recollection the conformity of this interpretation 
with the general tenor of the New Testament, or 
how often those enemies are mentioned or alluded 
to in the preaching of Christ and His apostles. The 
ministry of our Lord Himself was commenced by a 
personal contention with the chief of their number ; 
and to dislodge them from their human victims was 
one of the most frequent of those marvellous works 
whereby he asserted His claim to Divine authority .f 

* Schir Hoscherim Rabba, fol. 32. 3. " Deus S. B. vocavit 
angelum mortis, et dixit ipsi, Quamvis te feci xorffi-ox^aTo^a super 
homines, &c." Ibid. " Angelus mortis — dicitur Tenebrce" Also 
in the book of prayers quoted by Wetstein, ad h. 1 " Satanas 
PrincepsTenebrarum." Hammond, ad h.l. works, vol. iii.p. 631. 
" What i<jf ou^avia signifies here will be soon discerned, first, by 
remembering that the several regions of the air, and above all the 
globe of the earth, is in the Hebrew styled C2''0^y and in the 
Greek of these books ou^avoi. heavens ; and so iirov^avia will sig- 
nify those places, the several regions of the air ; secondly, that, 
the Syriac reading, for -Trvsujaarixa, irvzu^hara, and the phrase spirits 
of vnckedness in heavenly places, will be no more than the powers 
of the air under their ct^wv, or prince, that is, the devils under 
Beelzebub." To the same effect see Grotius, ad h. 1., and Eph. 
ii. 2.; Whitby, Eph. ii. 2.; Schleusner, voc. 'E<jrou^avia, &c. &c. 

■j- St. Matt. iv. 24. viii. 16. 28. ix. 32. xvii. 18. St. Mark i. 
•^23. 32. V. 12. St. Luke iv. 2. 33. 41. viii. 2. ix. 1. xiii. 32, &c. 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 79 

To " destroy the works of the devil," and subvert 
his authority among mankind, was the avowed and 
leading object of Christ's mission, and He Himself 
describes the prince of the wicked spirits as it were 
cast down from Heaven in consequence of the tri- 
umph of His Gospel* To the envy and influence 
of the same malicious being we are taught by SU 
John to ascribe the transgression of our first parents, 
and all the misery which their disobedience has en- 
tailed on their posterity. Cain, who slew his bro- 
ther, was under the power of " that wicked one." 
It is he who soweth tares in the spiritual field of 
Christ's Church ; he who taketh out the words of 
life firom the hearts of men, lest they should believe 
and escape destruction. It was the devil who 
prompted the treason of Judas, and the hypocrisy 
of Ananias and Sapphira; the wicked who follow 
his pleasures are x:?lled his children ; it was he who 
aspired to tempt the Son of God Himself by ofibring 
to His mortal view the power and pleasures of a 
worldly sovereign ; and St. John expressly speaks 
of him as the fountain of all evil, whea he tells us 
that " he that committeth sin is of the devil." 

Nor is it only as the seducer of mankind fi'om 
the paths of holiness that he approves Himself our 
deadly enemy : in several remarkable passages of 
Scripture he is represented as accusing the saints 

* 1. St. John iii. 8. St. Luke x. 18. 

t Rev. xii. 9. 1 St. John iii. 12. St. Matt. xiii. 39. St. Mark 
iv. 15. St. John xiii. 2. Acts v. 3. St. John viii. 44. Act? 
xiii. 10. St, Matt, iv. 1. 1 St, John iii. 8. 



80 SERMON IV. 

before God, and (either mediately through those 
men whom he has already ensnared, or by the im- 
mediate power of himself and his spiritual agents,) 
as impeding the progress of the truth upon earth ; 
and persecuting, both in their bodies and in their 
outward circumstances, the servants of God and 
the Messiah.* 

And as he is thus, for a time, permitted by God 
to exercise the constancy and patience of His saints, 
so we are instructed to look forward to the period 
when Satan shall, by the same mighty Conquorer 
who hath already cut short his power, be beaten 
down beneath the feet of those whom he hath per- 
secuted, in that day when everlasting fire is pre- 
pared for him and for his angels, and when, not 
only the wicked, but the devil who hath deceived 
them, shall be cast into the lake of torment.t 

In all these places it is difficult to conceive that 
either allegory or metaphor can be intended. It is 
hard to suppose that, in books meant for general 
instruction, and composed, as most of the books of 
the New Testament are, in a style extremely remote 
from every thing like poetry or fable, a fabulous 
and poetical mythology should have been so closely 
interwoven with their most solemn and literal truths, 
their most practical precepts, and their most awful 
motives for faith and conduct. And however such 
terms as " the evil principle," the " powers of evil," 

* Job i. 6. Zech. iii. 1. Rev. xii. 10. Job ii. 5. 2 Cor. xii. 7. 
Rev. ii. 10. if- 

t St. Matt. XXV. 41. Rom. xvi. 20. Rev. xx. 10. 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 81 

or " the gates of hell," or "the sphit of disobedi- 
ence," might possibly have been explained away to 
mean " mischief" or " temptation " in the abstract, 
and from whatever cause arising, yet of " devils," of 
" spirits," of " Satan and his angels," we know, as 
well as any thing in the history of language can be 
known, the ancient and usual meaning; and it is 
certain that if such creatures be altogether fabu- 
lous, no words could possibly have been used by 
the Son of God and His apostles more likely to 
deceive their hearers. 

Still, however, it is insisted that, admitting all 
these expressions to apply literally, and to be in- 
tended thus to apply to those evil and unfriendly 
angels of whom the Jews and Platonists stood in 
fear, yet the reality of such beings will not neces- 
sarily follow from the mention made of them in 
Scripture. " The doctrine in question/' (I give the 
words of the modern leader of the Socinians,) " the 
doctrine of an evil spirit was unknown to the Jews 
previous to their captivity, but was, probably, bor- 
rowed by their learned men, at that time, from the 
oriental philosophy." "After their return it be- 
came, in process of time, the popular creed, and 
the popular language, being gradually fashioned to 
it, was adopted equally by those who did, and those 
who did not beheve the theory on which it was 
founded." "But neither Jesus nor His apostles 
ever exphcitly declare that they themselves admit- 
ted the philosophy which governed the language of 
the country in which they hved, much less do they 

VOL. I. M 



82 kSERMONIV. 

profess to teach it as of divine authority.'' " The 
first teachers of Christianity neither positively af- 
firm, nor authoritatively contradict the existence 
and agency of an evil spirit." " The doctrine, 
therefore, rests on its ovirn evidence, that is, on no 
evidence at all."^ 

How much credit should be given to the asser- 
tions, and how much weight allowed to the argu- 
ments contained in this plausible and ingenious 
statement, may be learnt from the following obser- 
vations. 

That the doctrine of an evil spirit was unknown 
to the Jews before the Babylonish captivity (though 
it be an opinion which some men of considerable 
learning have adopted and maintained), will not 
be readily granted by those who, without perplex- 
ing the question with ambiguous names, and ex- 
traneous and irrelevant superstitions, confine their 
attention to the essentials of that doctrine as re- 
ceived by rational Christians. 

It is true, indeed, that the word Satan is em- 
ployed by Moses in a different sense from that of 
an evil spiritt ; and it is also true that this word, 
when it occurs in the prophecies anterior to the 
captivity, may bear the meaning of any adversary, 
either spiritual or merely human. But, though we 
should grant that the name does not occur in the 
more ancient writings of the Jews, though we 
should even grant that no allusion to the doctrine 

* Belsham, Review of Wilberforce, p. 36,37. 
+ Num. xxii. 22. 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 83 

of an evil spirit is found in those writings, it would 
be a very hasty inference that, therefore, the an- 
cient Jews must necessarily have been ignorant 
either of the one or the other; far more that the 
latter must, on this account, be abandoned as a 
vain and superstitious fable. 

The books in question, which are, partly, the 
statute law of the Hebrew nation, partly some very 
brief and incidental notices of their history, and 
partly, religious admonitions addressed on various 
occasions to their rulers or the body of their tribes, 
are by far too few and too short to be received as 
containing the sum total of their opinions and their 
prejudices. Still less are we to condemn as abso- 
lutely untrue, whatever is not expressly revealed 
in the earlier parts of the Old Testament. It has 
been a question (for instance) with many learned 
men, whether the resurrection itself be really dis- 
closed in the Jewish writings anterior to the cap- 
tivity; but there are few who conclude from hence 
that the Hebrews first learned this doctrine from 
the Chaldeans, and still fewer, I trust, who on this 
account deny that the dead are raised. If, how- 
ever (as many of the ancient and the most eminent 
of the modern commentators suppose), the book of 
Job were written or translated by Moses, it is cer- 
tain that Moses was well acquainted both with the 
term " Satan," and with the notion of that being to 
whom the term is now appropriated.* 

* See on this question, Dupin. Canon. 1. i. c. 3. Simon. Cri- 



84 SERMON IV. 

And, be this as it may, since the name of Job is 
placed by Ezekiel on the same honourable emi- 
nence with the prophets Daniel and Noah,* it re- 
mains for our antagonists either to show by what 
other means, except by the book of Scripture which 
relates his virtues, those virtues could have been 
known to the Jews, or to admit that this book, and 
the name and doctrine in question, were known to 
them before they can be well supposed to have 
formed their opinions on the mythology of Ba- 
bylon. 

But, moreover, though the appropriation of the 
name "Satan" to a particular being or class of 
beings, should not have taken place till a compara- 
tively recent period, yet will this go a very little 
way towards proving that the existence of such 
beings was unknown before. The name of Jehovah 
was first revealed to Moses during his abode in 
Arabia ;t but they would be hardy reasoners who 
should hence infer that the house of Israel were 
previously atheists, or that He of whom Jehovah 
is since become the appropriate title, was not re- 

tiqu. de Proleg. de Dupin, t. iii. p. 516. Huot. Demonst. Evang. 
p. 377. et seq. Johan. Henric. Michaelis in Hagiographos, t. i. 
p. 2. Patrick, Pref. to Job. Wells, ibid. Gray, Key to Old 
Test. p. 246. Job. Dav. Michaelis, Mosaisches Reeht Art. 298. 
et alibi passim, and the very learned and able preface to the book 
of Job, translated by John Mason Goode, Esq. M.D. 

* Ezek. xiv. 14. 

j- Exod. vi. 3. " And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, 
and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty ; but by my name 
Jehovah was I not known unto them." 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 85 

verenced by the ancient patriarchs under the name 
of " Elohim" or " El Schaddia." And, whatever 
weight we assign to the uniform opinion of the 
Jews, that the same beings who were afterwards 
called " Satan" were described by Moses as 
" Schairim" and " Schedim," or, in whatever de- 
gree we yield assent to the arguments of Spenser, 
that this was the import of the word " Azazel ;"* 
yet is it hardly possible to read with due attention 
the sixteenth chapter of the first book of Samuel, 
without being convinced that the " evil spirit" 
there spoken of, is precisely the same, both in the 
name and functions, with the evil spirits of the New- 
Testament. As, then, it is certain that the doc- 
trine in question was not first known to the Jews 
during their abode in Babylon, so there is not the 
smallest evidence (I might say not the smallest 
probability) that they derived it from the Chaldeans, 
or (still less) from the Persian system of Philosophy 
and superstition. 

But, further, at whatever time we suppose this 

* BochartHierozoic.T. ii. p. 643. DH^i^ti^ Mosi esse Daemo^ 
nes qui coluntur in Idolis putant plerique interpretes. Ita enim 
Chaldaei reddunt, et Syrus, et Arabs uterque, et Hieronymus, et 
Hebrcei omnes. Neque res est sine exemplo. Nam ad Dsemones 
referimt Graeci, Syrus, et Arabs, quod habetur Esai. xiii. 21. de 
BabylonisfuturadesolationeDn^ri^ etEsai.xxxiv.l4. "I^j/lt^ 
Neque aliud voluit Aquila Judseus cum DH^i^t^ reddidit 
Tgip^iwvTttff. Targum Jonath. ad Deut. xxxii. 17, explains D^Tti^ 
" Idolis quae assimilantur DsBmonibus." For the word Azazel 
7tNtN see Spenser de Leg. L. iii. Diss. 8. De Hirco Emiss. 
cap. 1. sect. 2. 3. 



86 SERMON IV. 

doctrine to have been made known to the Jews?, 
and from whatever source they received it, it is 
sufficient to estabhsh its truth with impartial in- 
quirers, if we find it afterwards confirmed by pro- 
phets and inspired persons, and more particularly 
by the Son of God Himself A revelation from 
Heaven has no less authority to establish what is 
doubtful, than to disclose what is unknown ; and 
on whatever grounds a doctrine has been at first 
believed, yet, certainly, if recognised by a celestial 
Monitor, that doctrine, thenceforth, becomes di- 
vine. If we suppose, for instance, that a nation to 
which Christianity is now first made known, has 
already received from its pagan ancestors the dog- 
ma of the soul's immortality, it will, in such a case, 
be probable that the opinion has been hitherto 
held on insufficient principles, or principles actu- 
ally unsound. It may have been deduced from the 
unassisted grounds of reason and natural rehgion ; 
it may have been taught as a part of an erroneous 
system of theology, and recommended to their faith 
on the authority of a Mango Capac or a Zoroaster. 
But, when its truth has been once confirmed by a 
new and better religion, when the voice of God 
shall have thenceforth sanctioned that verity which 
the nation had previously adopted, it will be pre- 
posterous in succeeding sophists to argue that the 
opinion is itself untrue, because their forefathers 
received it from a suspected fountain. 

The question, accordingly, may be safely allowed 
to rest on the expressions of our Lord and His 



ON THE EXISTENCE 01^ EVIL SPIRITS. 81* 

apostles ; nor will our antagonists themselves, as 
I conceive, deny that there are many expressions 
of theirs, which, hke my text, can only be under- 
stood as referring to the doctrine of evil spirits. 
They can, therefore, only answer that " our Lord 
and His apostles conformed their language to the 
popular opinions of the time," " that they spoke of 
fiends and demoniacs, as they spoke of the rising 
and setting of the sun ; but that they can by no 
means be fairly regarded as vouching for the per- 
fect accuracy either of the ancient behef iri spirits^ 
or the ancient system of the universe." 

But before this answer can be admitted as a so- 
lution of the difficulty, we may require them to 
show, first, that the doctrine in question is of such 
a nature, as that a Divine Teacher, knowing it to 
be untrue, could, with propriety, give it the sanc- 
tion even of his acquiescence ; and secondly, that 
the expressions used on this subject by our Chris- 
tian teachers, amount, in fact, to no more than 
such an acquiescence in the errors of other men, 
without adding to them the weight of their own 
authority, 

I will readily admit that an inspired teacher is 
not necessarily called on to undeceive his hearers 
in such harmless points of speculative opinion, as 
do not fall within the limits of that doctrine which 
he has in charge to dehver from Heaven. But, if 
an opinion be closely, though incidentally, con- 
nected with rehgious faith and conscientious prac- 
tice; if it be interwoven with the strongest hopes 



88 SERMON IV. 

and fears of the human breast ; if it be of a nature 
to disturb the weak and distract the timorous, it 
is the duty of a prophet, as it would be the duty 
of any other enhghtened person, to undeceive his 
brother on a point of such a nature, no less than it 
would be his duty to relieve him from a groundless 
alarm, or to rouse him from a dream of agony. 

Now, that a behef in evil spirits, whether true or 
false, is one of a gloomy and disquieting character; 
that it is one which may produce the worst results 
when indiscreetly and too curiously contemplated; 
that it has drawn some into the most loathsome 
guilt, and plunged others into the acutest suffering; 
that it has been the usual source of religious and 
magical imposture; and that its abuses may be 
traced through innumerable shades of human mi- 
sery, from the fears of childhood to the ravings of 
frenzy, our antagonists are so far from denying that 
they ground one principal objection against its 
truth on its supposed inconsistency with the wisdom 
and mercy of our Creator. The sohdity of this 
objection, I will not pause to consider ; but it must 
be allowed, on the principles of our opponents 
themselves, that when even the incidental conse- 
quences of an opinion are thus dismal, that opinion 
is one which, if untrue, it well becomes a prophet 
to expose in its proper weakness. 

If the confutation of such an error as is here 
described, so widely spread, so practically calami- 
tous, had been the principal, nay the single object 
of our Saviour's mission to mankind, will our an- 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 89 

tagonists deny that, on their view of the question, 
it would have been a worthy and sufficient reason 
for a display of infinite power, and a revelation of 
infinite wisdom ? But, when instances of a belief 
in evil spirits and of its wretched consequences en- 
countered the prophet in every street, and haunted 
him through every province of Israel, can we sup- 
pose that, if the world were indeed deceived, a 
prophet of God would not have undeceived it ; or 
that he would not have done so eflfectually and 
for ever, rather than have appKed, by humouring 
its prejudices, a temporary palliative in the manner 
most likely to confirm its fears in future ? A child 
flies weeping to his parent to complain that there 
is a lion in the wood : will the parent content him- 
self with administering some childish comfort which 
will quiet his cries for a time, but leave their cause 
unabated, and his terrors ready to revive when he 
shall next approach the fatal thicket ? Or will he 
not rather remove his alarm by convincing him of 
his folly, and by shewing him the true nature and 
security of that wood which his fancy has peopled 
with monsters ? 

But if a simple acquiescence in a gloomy preju- 
dice be unworthy of the Messiah's character, what 
shall be said of the fact that the Messiah and His 
apostles, by their express words and significant 
actions, encouraged and confirmed this prejudice ? 
Not only do they, from the credited fact that evil 
spirits existed, reason as an argument " ad homi- 
nes," and an argument taken from the notions df 

VOL. I, N 



90 SERMON IV. 

those with whom they converse ; they appear, in 
every instance, to have spoken and acted in the 
very manner in which they must have done had 
they been themselves persuaded of its truth ; and 
there are some remarkable expressions of which, if 
they are not positive assertions of the fact, it is 
not easy to guess the meaning. When St. Paul 
informs us that "we wrestle hot with flesh and 
blood, hut with the principalities and powers of 
evil," can this be any otherwise understood than as 
an assurance that such powers exist distinct from 
man, and that men are called on to contend with 
them.'^ When our Lord, in describing beforehand 
the most awful transaction in which the human 
race can be parties, informs us that " everlasting 
fire is prepared for the devil and his angels,"^ 
would He have used such expressions if no such 
angels existed? When He commanded the unclean 
spirits, by that name, to depart from their mortal 
victims, can we conceive Him to have been, in such 
a case, addressing a nonentity, or that He would 
have lent the sanction of His word to a popular 
error, when he might have cured the maniac by a 
touch, or have said to the epileptic person, " be 
thou whole of thy plague !" What would have been 
our opinion of Zoroaster or Mohammed if they 
had, in like manner, administered to the fears of 
the vulgar, and taken credit to themselves for the 
defeat of imaginary enemies } Or, if we shrink 

St. Matt. XXV. 41. 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 91 

from such thoughts as appUed to the Celestial Au- 
thor of our faith, what other conclusion can we 
arrive at, but that the -doctrine which His solemn 
expressions countenanced, is true ? 

But, if it be thus difficult to explain away the 
words of our Lord, there are some of his actions, 
if possible, still less equivocal. I do not mean 
to enter on the extensive and difficult question 
of the manner in which evil spirits are said to 
possess human beings, or the degree of power 
which they exercise over their victims. But, if in 
the history of the supposed demoniac of Gadara, 
we apprehend no other person to be concerned but 
our Lord and His distracted patient ; if it were no 
more than the diseased imagination of the sufferer 
which answered in the demon's name ; and if it 
were the ravings of phrenzy only which desired 
that his tormentor might take shelter in the swine, 
can we suppose that our Lord, not content with 
simple acquiescence, not content with conforming 
his speech to the hallucination of the frantic man. 
would, by afflicting the herd with a like disease, 
have miraculously confirmed the delusion ?* Do 
our antagonists believe this history ? What manu- 
script, what authority, what ecclesiastical tradition 
can they plead for rejecting it from the place which 
it holds in the writings of three out of the four evan- 
gelists ? Is the restoration of Lazarus to hfe less 
wonderful in itself, or more credibly attested ? Or, 

^ St. Matt. viii. 28. St. Mark v. 9. St. Luke viii. 30. 



9:2 SERMON IV. 

what further reasons have we for beUeving that our 
Lord restored the leper to health, than that He cast 
out devils from the man who " had the legion ?" 
I am addressing a congregation of Christians ; they 
are Christians against whom I am now disputing ; 
and I call, by that holy name, on you and on them, 
to beware how you select, according to your un- 
supported fancy or prejudice, those passages of the 
word of truth to which you will or will not give 
credit. Be our religion true or false, the New Tes- 
tament is our only record of its facts and its doc- 
trines. If the religion be false, that time is but 
lost which is spent in culling probabilities from a 
mass of error ; but, if true, woe, woe to them who 
refuse the testimony of God and His prophets, how- 
ever strange to mortal ears the subject of that tes- 
timony may appear ! 

But, brethren, is it indeed incredible, is it indeed 
contradictory to reason, to the hght of nature, and 
to the general analogy of God's works, that, as there 
are wicked men, there should be wicked spirits 
also ? If the existence of evil is allowed at all, at 
what point in the scale of created being, can we 
decide that it shall be found no longer ? Imperfec- 
tion of some kind or other, yea, imperfection of 
every kind must cleave more or less to all but the 
Infinitely Good, and Wise and Mighty. If there 
are invisible beings (and that some such there are 
but few have ventured to question) the probabihty, 
regarding it as a subject of philosophical analogy 
only, must be that oppression and malice will have 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 93 

tbund their room in the unseen as well as the visible 
world, and that the Judge of all will have had oc- 
casion, how seldom soever, to tax not only men 
but angels, with folly. And, since His providence 
on earth is accustomed to turn the fierceness of 
man to His praise, and by the blind and reluctant 
labours of the wicked, to work out His own holy 
will, and the general happiness of His creation* 
what wonder that He should, in like manner, em- 
ploy the envy and malice of His apostate angels, 
and endure, with much long-suffering, those vessels 
of wrath fitted for destruction, to the intent that, 
by their means, the patience of His saints may be 
known, and that they whom He thinks fit to lead 
through a state of trial, may, like their Divine Mas- 
ter in His human nature, be made perfect through 
suffering ! 

I am not pleading the cause of those revolting ex- 
crescences with which the doctrine in question has, 
from time to time, been defaced and encumbered- 
We may dismiss to the abodes of error and super- 
stition the foolish and wicked fables which have 
alarmed our childhood, and been, to our youth, the 
occasion of mockery. We shall even do well to 
distinguish carefully the little which God's word dis- 
closes as to the invisible world, from the adventur- 
ous conjectures of the ancient fathers, and the glow- 
ing dreams of Milton and Klopstock. Of the par- 
ticular crime or crimes which first deprived these 
angels of God's favour ; of their previous rank, and 
of the exact degree of power which they are still 



94 SERMON IV. 

permitted to exercise ; of the mode of their present 
existence, whether pm*ely intellectual or united to 
some subtile vehicle ; of the means by which they 
communicate with, and tempt the soul, and the in- 
fluence which they exert over the material frame of 
nature; whether any portion of God's threatened 
wrath has already been poured out on them ; or 
whether they have tasted as yet no more than the 
expectation of judgment to come, too little is re- 
vealed in Scripture to enable us to decide, and they 
are subjects on which we may well continue igno- 
rant. It is enough for us to know, and thus much, 
it may be thought, is clearly communicated in Scrip- 
ture, that our dangers are great, and our adversaries 
mighty and numerous. 

For as we cannot impute to the inspired teachers 
of our faith a design to scare us into our duty by 
disproportionate descriptions of our peril, we must 
conclude that the alarming language which the Holy 
Ghost employs on this subject, is more, far more, 
than an ornament of rhetoric or poetry. " The 
prince of the power of the air," " the great dra- 
gon," the " god of this world ;" these are no words 
of common terror; and that fury which is com- 
pared to " a roaring hon," that tyranny from which 
we daily pray to " be delivered," must needs be one, 
to cope with which the best exertions of our natu- 
ral and celestial strength are no more than suffi- 
cient.* And since seven of these spirits are, in 

* Ephcs. ii. 2. Rev. \ii. .'5. 2 Cor. iv. 4. 1 St. Pet. v. R. 
►St. Matt. vi. K^. 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 95 

Scripture, assigned to the affliction of a single ob- 
scure individual ; since over another so mighty a 
company kept watch as to deserve the name of 
" legion,'' we may well conclude that the entire 
army is great when such detachments as these are 
allotted to so trifling enterprises*. The parts, in- 
deed, of tempter and accuser, which are, of all 
others, most frequently ascribed to Satan by the 
Holy Ghost, inasmuch as they imply, if not the con- 
tinual, at least the very frequent, presence, and 
prompting, and superintendence of such an agent 
with every one of us, may convince us (since ubi- 
quity is the property of God alone) that the name 
of Satan is, as I have observed, applied to many in- 
dividuals, and that these individuals are sufficiently 
numerous to lay siege to every heart, and keep a 
watch over every action of mankind. 

From these persuasions, how^ever, many impor- 
tant consequences follow, and many thoughts may 
be suggested by them, which cannot but be ex- 
tremely usefril in the government of our Hves and 
tempers. The assurance that our wresthng is 
*• not with flesh and blood," may dispose om* hearts 
to forgive those visible and mortal adversaries, who 
are, in fact, nothmg more than the tools of that 
immortal and mahgnant being, who reaps his hor- 
rible harvest of sin and misery alike by their injus- 
tice, and by our immoderate resentment. Fling a 
stone at a dog and he will bite the stone ; surely, 
no less irrational is our behaviour when, permitting 
*St. Luke viii. 2. St, Mark v. 9. 



96 SERMON IV. 

ourselves to be overcome of evil, we rage against 
such of our brethren as the tempter employs to 
buffet us ; who are, by so much the more worthy 
objects of our pity, by how much the more unjustly 
he has induced them to hate and injure us. Our 
warfare is not with flesh and blood, nor can we 
better prepare ourselves for the struggle than by a 
careful distinction, both in our thoughts and our 
prayers, between our apparent and our actual ene- 
mies. 

It may, secondly, tend, in no inconsiderable de- 
gree, to unmask the danger and deformity of sin, if 
we steadily bear in mind whose counsels they are 
which seek to draw off our souls from God, by what 
motives those offers of pleasure and power are dic- 
tated, by which the tempter appears to consult our 
present ease or to provide for our future gratifica- 
tion. The advice and caresses of an enemy are, to 
a prudent man, an additional motive for distrust 
and circumspection ; and when a thought is sug- 
gested to us which would lead to a compromise or 
desertion of our duty, it may often be useful to ask 
the question of our hearts, " Who is it that is urging 
me thus, and wherefore does he urge me } Can I 
beUeve that he has my comfort or advantage in 
view ? that he can really desire to make my task of 
duty easier, or to smooth my road to heaven ?" 
t' Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of 
any bird,''* and a deep-rooted conviction of Satan's 
presence and agency in those gilded and flowery 

♦= Prov. i. 17. 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 97 

toils which he daily spreads before our path, would 
in itself be almost sufficient to deliver " our souls 
from the snare of the fowler." 

When, thirdly, we acknowledge the number and 
power of those tempters to whom the name of Satan 
is applied, how strange and awful a prospect of 
things is opened to our mental view ! How^ popu- 
lous, how vital is the world ! By wdiat a cloud of 
witnesses are our most secret actions observed, and 
our most lonely hours begirt by how many unseen 
companions ! Not a thought passes over our minds 
which may not be prompted by some unseen ad- 
viser ; not a breeze fans our cheek but it may bring 
some airy visitant. Many of these, no doubt, are 
faithful servants of God, and fellow-servants of those 
who bore the testimony of Jesus ; but how many 
are there also who hover round to work our ruin, 
and who exulU w^ith hideous joy, over every crime 
we commit, and every misfortune which befalls us ! 

And surrounded by so many and so great dangers, 
by enemies so numerous and so powerful, is it not 
our duty, nay, are we not in common prudence 
called on, to betake ourselves to rehgion and the 
protection of Christ, not only as the surest means 
of pleasing God, but as a present refuge and sanc- 
tuary ? If we desire that the adversary should have 
no advantage over us, with how great earnestness 
should we seek that God who is a strong tower of 
defence to all that trust in Him ; and the shelter of 
that name to which all things in Heaven and od 
earth, and under the earth, do bow down ? 

VOL. I. O 



98 ;SERMON IV. 

Let no man mistake my apprehensions ! No 
slavish fears, no trifling superstition can follow from 
such views, when regulated by reason and Scripture. 
The sense of His power and presence, in whose 
sight both men and angels are as nothing, will at 
once extinguish, in a well-regulated mind, all idle 
dread of what either men or angels may meditate 
against us ; while the notions which His word has 
taught us to entertain of evil spirits are, of them- 
selves, sufficient to discredit the ordinary tales of 
witchcraft and apparitions. These warriors of dark- 
ness, these princes of the power of the air, will they 
lend their strength to the caprices of an earthly 
enchanter ? Will they stoop from their whirlwind 
to rustle in a hermit's cell ? Their schemes of de- 
struction are, surely, on a sublimer scale ; and, if it 
be true, (which I will not either assert or deny) 
that their agency extends to the malferial as well as 
the moral world, we may expect, at least, to trace 
it in actions widely different from those which can- 
not be heard without disdain. Nor is there any 
circumstance which has contributed more than 
these idle legends to a habit, of which the impro- 
priety is too little felt, even by the devout and vir- 
tuous ; the habit, I mean, of speaking of the de- 
stroyer in terms of pleasantry and ridicule; of 
minglhig his name with our n^ir^h and with our 
familiar and idle conversation. 

Such language, to say the least of it, betrays i\ 
light and inadequate view of the danger from which 
wo daily pray to bo delivered : and by diminishing 



ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. 99 

our apprehension of the devil's snares, must dimi- 
nish our watchfulness and our security. But, in 
truth, I am not sure but such expressions are in 
themselves, and of their own nature, evil. Sinners 
as we are, it is not for us to treat with scorn even 
the worst and most wretched of God's creatures, 
and that spirit against whom the archangel would 
not bring a railing accusation, is by no means a 
proper subject for tlie laughter of fools, or the 
songs of the drunkard.* 

While, however, the recollection of our own 
weakness, and of the former dignity of the fallen 
spirits, should restrain us from regarding them with 
any other feehngs than compassion and self-abase- 
ment, the consideration of their malice and power, 
when compared with the protection which we enjoy 
in the present world, and the victory which is pro- 
mised us in the world to come, will be, to a well- 
regulated mind, the source of abundant thankful- 
ness to that God, who hath not given us over as a 
prey unto their teeth, and to that blessed Son who, 
to save us from their malice, hath humbled Himself 

* Michaelis Jubr. vol. iv. p. 392, goes much further than I 
have done. " I really think" (are his words) " that they trans- 
gress the bounds of propriety who make it their business, either 
in the pulpit or in their writings, to represent the devil as an oJj- 
ject of detestation ; since, notwithstanding his fall, he is still a 
being of a superior order." How we can do otherwise than 
regard the devil as an object of detestation, I do not know ; but 
without laying any stress on his present dignity, his fall may well 
operate on us as an awf\d warning, nor have we any right to 
insult the fallen. 



100 SERMON IV. 

to endure its violence. Were human weakness and 
folly opposed unaided to the power and craft of 
angels, the contest were, indeed, without hope. 
But, God be praised, it is not in our own strength 
that we are to contend with them. We fight under 
the banner of Christ our Lord, and the armour 
which His grace supphes to us is proof against all 
their terrors. While, therefore, the recollection 
that we wrestle with principalities and powers should 
make us sober and watchful unto prayer, the means 
of defence which we have received from the Most 
High should remove from us all desponding 
thoughts, and warm our inmost souls with a holy 
hope of victory. 

But let us remember that this hope must needs 
be vain, unless our own exertions correspond with 
it, and that it is by a faithful perseverance in the 
works and warfare of a Christian, that our salvation 
must be secured. The helmet,the breastplate, the 
sandals of peace, which decorate the soldier of the 
Messiah, these are not a clothing adapted for sleep 
or revelry. The faith which is our shield is useless, 
if we suffer it to hang idle by our side ; and our 
knowledge of the Scripture is but a sheathed sword, 
unless we wield it against the destroyer. Nor, let 
us forget that, even thus provided, we cannot hope 
of ourselves to help ourselves, and that our mortal 
courage and our celestial panoply must both alike 
be vain, unless we frequently support the one and 
renew the other by the holy influences of Christ's 
altar and sacrifice, and by that fervent prayer, which 



O^ THE EXISTEiNCE OF EVIL SPIRITS. IQl 

can call down the Captain of our salvation to our 
rescue, and interpose the promise of the Most True 
God between ourselves and our spiritual enemies. 
And to Him, the Seed of the woman, and bruiser 
of the serpent's head, to Him, from the inhabitants 
of every world, and element, and sun, and star, and 
from all who dwell on the earth, above, or under 
it, be ascribed, as is most due, with the Father and 
the Holy Ghost, all might, all honour, glory, and 
dominion now and for ever. Amen. 



SERMON V. 



ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 

[Preached at Lincoln's Inn, November 10, 1822.] 



Exodus iii. 14. ^ 

And God said unto Moses, I am that I am ; and He said, 
Thus shall thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath 
sent me unto you. 

In considering these words of God to His servant 
Moses, there are three points to which I am chiefly 
anxious to call your attention. They are, first, 
what grounds we have for believing that such a 
communication was actually made to Moses ; se- 
condly, the character and rank of the celestial per- 
son by whose immediate agency it was made; and 
thirdly, the meaning of the communication itself, 
and its moral and rehgious consequences. And 
though these topics have been so often and so ably 
discussed, that little novelty or illustration of argu- 
ment can be expected on any of them, yet the en- 
deavour may, by God's blessing, be not without 
its use, to present in a compendious form to my 
younger hearers some of the most striking evi- 
dences of that earlier creed on which our own is 



INSPIRATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 103 

mainly founded ; to point out in one conspicuous 
instance, the connexion which subsists between the 
Mosaic and the Christian economy, and to refresh 
in our minds that recollection of God's nature and 
attributes in which both Jew and Gentile have, in 
all ages, been equally concerned. 

It is true, indeed, and it is an observation which 
it is wise as well as candid to bear in mind, that 
our faith in the Lord Jesus may be satisfactorily 
defended by the internal and external evidence of 
the New Testament alone, though we should aban- 
don as spurious or apocryphal the volume of the 
law and the prophets. It was thus that very many 
of the ancient heathen were converted who cannot 
have been acquainted to any great extent, with the 
sacred writings of the Jews ; and it was thus that 
some early sects to whom, notwithstanding their 
errors, it would be unjust to deny the name of 
Christian, rejected the inspiration of the books of 
Moses as at variance with those Platonic preju- 
dices* which were among the greatest hindrances 
which the Gospel had at first to encounter. 

But though it be possible to receive the Christian 
faith without acknowledging the previous claims 
of the Mosaic theology, and though the defence of 

* Epiphanius Heir. Ixi. 74. Aiysi o avrog MavYig, ou du\iarai Ivog 
tii^atfxaXou s/vai "TTaXaja xai xaiv'^ Aia&YjXYi — §. 75. AivSpS(fiv 6s i^y]- 
pafjofAsvoij xa; yzyr^^axodiv d-rsjxa^si t(ak\v vo/xov xa< rf^ocprjrag. Ire- 
naeus, 1. i. § 24. [Basilides] prophetias a mundi fabricatoribus 
fuisse ait principibus, proprie autem Legem a principe ipsorum. 
Seealso§.29,&c. 



104 SERMON IV. 

the one would not be desperate even if the othei* 
were unknown or abandoned, yet it is certain that 
by such an abandonment we should rob Christi- 
anity of that most powerful and convincing support 
which is afforded by the unbroken chain of pro- 
phecy ; that we should relinquish the most valuable 
commentary which God has furnished on the reh- 
gion of His Son; and that, since the first teachers 
of Christianity so often appeal to the authority of 
the law in order to establish their own Divine com- 
mission, we must, if the law be abandoned, en- 
danger, in no small degree, their inspiration or their 
sincerity. When, therefore, we defend the Divine 
original of the Jewish creed, we are defending, in 
fact, our own ; — and with this impression I will 
now submit to your consideration some few of those 
arguments which arise from the internal evidence 
of Scripture to establish the fact that Moses was 
really so honoured by God as is related in the third 
chapter of Exodus. 

It may, in the first place, be maintained on 
grounds which will hardly be disputed or impugned 
by a candid unbeliever, that the account contained 
in the Jewish Scriptures of the parentage and edu- 
cation of Moses, of the authority which he acquired 
over the Israelitish tribes, and the religious and 
political system which they received from him is, 
in its essential points at least, and its leading and 
general outlines, accurate. I will not discuss the 
truth or falsehood of that supernatural machinery 
by which, if wo ])clievc the sacred historian, the 



INSPIRATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 105 

mission of Moses was announced and ratified. 
Those marvels which were, to their immediate wit- 
nesses, the most appropriate and convincing evi- 
dence that Moses was sent by God, are to us, in 
themselves, the subjects of faith alone, which can- 
not be brought forward as proofs of that history on 
whose credit we receive them. But if they cannot 
be adduced as proofs, neither can they be reason- 
ably objected to as impeachments of the historic 
credibihty of the Pentateuch, since, if we can esta- 
blish by any other means the Divine commission 
of Moses, such wonders, as a consequence and ac- 
companiment of that commission, become at once 
(if I may use the expression) natural, while much, 
very much will remain in the Mosaic volume from 
which we cannot reasonably withhold our belief, 
even though we should regard as exaggerated or 
fabulous " the ten wounds which tamed the River 
Dragon,"^ and the mighty arm of God which was 
made bare in the Red Sea and in the wilderness. 

In all ancient histories there is a frequent recur- 
rence of prodigies. And it is a question which 
unbehevers might do well to weigh attentively, whe- 
ther this prevalence, in every nation of mankind, of 
similar traditions or assumptions, may not be rea- 
sonably regarded as one proof of a common origin, 



Thus with ten wounds 



The River Dragon tam'd, at length submits 
To let his sojourners depart." — Par. Lost. xii. 190. 
See Ezelt. xxix. 3. 



VOL. I. 



106 SERMON V. 

and as the recollection of some earlier age when 
those occurrences were real and frequent, of which 
the priestcraft of a latter day was no more than a 
spurious copy ? Imposture is often the shadow of 
truth ; nor is it easy to conceive how the idea first 
arose of claiming, however falsely, an intercourse 
with the invisible world, unless our species had 
been really at one time admitted to converse with 
angels and with God, and the fact had thus been 
ascertained and generally understood, that such an 
intercourse was not incredible. But, be this as it 
may, it will be granted that, in whatever histories 
such supernatural revelations are found (though we 
should regard these particular passages as, in them- 
selves, uncertain or incredible), we do not, there- 
fore, reject the facts which the same writers record, 
so far as those facts are consistent with general ex- 
perience, and confirmed by external testimony. We 
believe that Cyrus conquered Sardis,and that Romu- 
lus founded the city which bears his name, though 
we reject as fabulous the miraculous deliverance of 
Croesus from the flames, and the wolf by which the 
Italian chief is said to have been fostered. And (to 
select a more modern example, and one which so 
far resembles the case of Moses, as it involves, hke 
his, a claim to celestial inspiration,) we believe the 
circumstances contained in what may be called the 
civil biography of Mahomet, though we deny that 
his nightly solitude was visited by the Angel Ga- 
briel ; that he hid the moon in his sleeve, and was 
carried on a winged mule to Paradise. And, in 



INSPIRATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 107 

like manner, tlie most suspicious sceptic may ad- 
mit, (however his behef be, for the present, v/ith- 
held from the supernatural parts of the Mosaic 
narrative) that Moses was born of Hebrew parents ; 
that he was brought up by an Egyptian princess 
among the priests and sages of her country ; that 
he remained during many years an exile in Arabia, 
from whence he returned, at an advanced age, as 
the teacher of a new religion; that he conducted a 
mighty multitude of oppressed peasants from Egypt 
to the borders of Palestine ; and on their way de- 
Hvered to them, amid the valleys of Mount Sinai, 
those laws which, in after ages, distinguished the 
Israelites from the rest of mankind. 
' To such an assent, indeed, every rational in- 
quirer will be guided by the consistency of the ac- 
count here given with the current traditions of the 
heathen world, no less than by the demonstrable 
antiquity of the Pentateuch, and its candour and 
simplicity. All heathen authors with whom I have 
met agree that the Jews went forth from Egypt to 
Palestine, and that they received from Moses the 
ritual of their solitary God. That this Moses was 
a priest or learned man of Hehopolis, and that his 
departure from Egypt was preceded by circum- 
stances of great distress to the Egyptian nation, 
were recorded or admitted by all the chroniclers to 
whom Josephus and Eusebius refer; while even 
the learned and indefatigable hostility of Apion 
was able to ehcit no other tradition from the native 



108 SERMON \. 

authorities which he consulted * That by these 
last some important circumstances were forgotten 
or suppressed, and many odious and improbable 
particulars engrafted on the simple Mosaic history, 
we shall not think strange if we consider the lapse 
of ages which had intervened, and the mutual irri- 
tation under which the Israelites had parted with 
their task-masters. But that Moses really existed, 
and was nearly such a person as is described in the 
Sacred Volume, is as strongly confirmed by external 
and even by hostile evidence, as can be reasonably 
expected in transactions of such extreme antiquity. 
But the demonstrable antiquity of the work in 
which this account is given affords a yet stronger 
presumption of its general and historic accuracy. 
Even if we should take the latest date which infi- 
delity has assigned for the composition of the Pen- 
tateuch, and grant (which can only be granted for 
the purposes of temporary argument) that Ezra 
was its compiler, we have still a compilation co- 
eval with the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, and 
older, by some years at least, than the oldest hea- 
then historian. And since it is certain that, from 
very high antiquity, the art of alphabetical writing 
was known to the nations of Phoenicia and Pales- 
tine ; since experience proves that, wherever men 
can write at all, they begin with writing down the 

* Tacitus, Hist. iv. 3. Justin. Hist. 1. xxxvi. Joseph, contra 
Apion, 1. i. § 26. ii.§.2. See also Eusebius, Praepar. Evang.ix.8. 



INSPIRATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 109 

names and exploits of their ancestors; and, since 
the successive and gradual transportation of the 
nobles, the kings, the priests, and the archives of 
Judah to Babylon, before the final ruin of their city 
by Nebuchadnezzar, removed the greatest and only 
danger to which such documents had, in their in- 
stance, been exposed, it would be idle to deny the 
probable existence, in Ezra's time, of many authen- 
tic historical documents, or to refuse to the most 
celebrated of Jewish scribes that credit as a collec- 
tor of his nation's antiquities, which we assign to 
Livy in the Roman, or to Diodorus in the Grecian 
history. 

But, though a high degree of credit would have 
fairly attached itself to whatever even Ezra had 
related concerning the origin of the Hebrew repub- 
lic, there are m?^ny circumstances which compel 
us to ascribe the Pentateuch to another and a far 
earlier author. 

We have, first, the acknowledged writings of Ezra 
himself and his contemporary and coadjutor Nehe- 
miah, de" ^^]ing with much minuteness the measures 
which they jointly and severally pursued for the 
restoration of the Jewish polity. But by neither is 
the most distant allusion made to that which, if real, 
would have been the most illustrious of Ezra's 
labours, the collection and digest of the ancient 
national history and jurisprudence. Nor, though 
both Ezra and Nehemiah repeatedly mention that 
•'Book of the Law" which Ezra read and expounded 



110 ;SERMON V. 

to the people, do they ever intimate that he had 
himself compiled the work in question from the 
songs of the ancient bards, or the traditions of the 
wise men before the captivity. 

Will it be said that Ezra was the rebuilder of a 
decayed superstition ; that it was necessary for him 
to support his new made code by the venerable 
name of Moses, and to merge the vanity of an au- 
thor in the darker pride of a successful imposter ? 
Yet surely, when a book of great pretended anti- 
quity was to be obtruded on a nation who had never 
heard of it before, it would have been necessary, in 
order to secure its reception at all, to render some 
account of its loss and subsequent recovery. We, 
surely, should have been told how " Ezra the ser- 
vant of the Lord was guided to the tomb of Moses;" 
how the precious manuscript of their great prophet 
was discovered among the ruins of their former 
temple; or how that book which the priests of 
elder time had concealed from profane curiosity 
was to be exposed at length to the devout exami- 
nation of the multitude of faithful Israelites ! 

But of this sort of juggling there remains not the 
smallest vestige. Both Ezra and Nehemiah speak 
of the book of the law as of a composition with 
which those to whom they write had already been 
long famihar; as one which, sixty years before, 
had directed the proceedings of Jeshuah and Ze- 
rubbabelin their consecration of the second temple; 
and which had been all handed down from the re- 



INSPIRATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. Ill 

inotest antiquity, as the genuine work of their 
inspired legislator.* 

Nor is this all. The books of Moses are far 
from standing alone or unsupported in the canon 
of the Old Testament. There are others there 
which no sceptic has yet apprehended to be the 
works of Ezra, or of any other than the authors to 
whom they are usually attributed. The book of 
Joshua contains the strongest internal evidence of 
having been written while the harlot Rahab 
was yet alive, and by one v\^ho had himself passed 
over Jordan with the Israelitish army. Those 
of the Kings are certainly not Ezra's composi- 
tion, inasmuch as they are not infrequently at 
variance with Ezra's own statements in his Books 
of Chronicles. No imposters (I might say no num- 
ber of imposters) could have counterfeited the local 
and temporary allusions, the vast variety of style, of 
sentiment and circumstance, which are found in 
the different moral and prophetic writings, from the 
polished elegance of Solomon to the homely vigour 
of Ezekiel ; from the querulous language of Jere- 
miah to the fiery majesty of the evangelical pro- 
phet, and from the calm didactic morality of Asaph 
to the songs of David, abounding in every beauty of 
which lyric poetry is susceptible. All these writers, 
however, and others whom I have not instanced, 
alike refer to the law of Moses as a written volume ; 

* Psalm xl. 7. Joshua i. 8. 2 Kings xxiii. 2. Ezra vi. 18. 
Dan. ix. 11. 



112 SERMON V, 

and we have thus a chain of evidence to its anti- 
quity, ascending from the time of Ezra himself, 
to a period when the memory of Moses must have 
been yet green, and his actions and character fami- 
har, when some must have survived who had shared 
his last benediction, or who had witnessed his firm 
step and vigorous old age as he climbed the steep of 
Pisgah.* And this, it may be observed, will shew 
the weakness of Volney's hypothesis, which regards 
the Pentateuch as a compilation made after the 
return of the Jews from Babylon.t That hypothesis 
is, indeed, confuted by the total silence of Jere- 
miah, the son perhaps, but certainly the contem- 
porary of this same Hilkiah, the whole purport of 
whose writings is to enforce, with pathetic denun- 
ciations of vengeance, the observation of the laws of 
Moses. But there is no single passage in all his 
fifty-four chapters ; nor is there a single passage in 
any of the prophets who lived during the Babylo- 
nian captivity, in which this law is spoken of as a 
matter of recent discovery ; in which they deplore 
the carelessness of their fathers who had suffered so 
precious a document to fall into oblivion ; in which 
they extol the mercies of God who restored it to 
their generation ; or magnify the zeal and diligence 
of those good men by whom it had been so recently 
snatched from the dust of the sacred archives. On 
the contrary, they all speak of the law as Ezra did 
afterwards, and as David had done before them, as 

* Dcut. xxxiv. 1. 7 t Voyage do Volney, t. iii. p. 115. 



INSPIRATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 113 

a work familiar to their nation from its first politi- 
cal existence, and the transgression of which was 
not more the sin of one generation of Israelites 
than of another. It is evident, therefore, that (how- 
ever the accidental discovery of a very ancient copy 
of the law, perhaps the autograph of Moses him- 
self, may have excited in Josiah's mind a greater 
attention to its contents than had been excited by 
the usual copies in circulation,) it was no new work, 
which in his days the high priest discovered in the 
Temple,* nor could Hilkiah have, by any possi- 
bility, been the forger of a volume which many hun- 
dred years before his time had been read by Joshua 
and by David. 

It is true that some sceptics have attempted to 
distinguish between the legal and historical parts of 
the Pentateuch, and, while they allowed the former 
to be the genuine work of Moses, have ascribed to 
Hilkiah, or to Ezra, all those passages which fall 
under the second description.! But, first, it was a 
legal, not an historical passage, by the recital of 
which Hilkiah so strongly excited the alarms of his 
sovereign. So far, therefore, as Hilkiah is con- 
cerned, he had no interest in, no conceivable mo- 
tive for the historical forgery which is ascribed to 

* 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14. 

t Vandale, Dissert, de Idololatria, p. 685 — 7. Vides interim. 
Oeleberrime Vir, me distinguere Codicem Legis a Pentateucho. 
Quod porro attinet ad Pentateuchum, is, certe, mihi compositus 
videtur ab Esdra Scriba. So also Hobbesand Spinosa, referred 
to by Kidder ; Dissertation concerning the Author of the Penta- 
teuch, xxiv. 

VOL. I. Q 



114 SERMON V. 

him. And, secondly, in the case of Ezra, the dif- 
ficulty is apparent of separating the laws them- 
selves from the circumstances which called them 
forth, and which can only satisfactorily account for 
their repetitions, their redundancies, their very de- 
fects, (for to such occasional defects I am not insen- 
sible,) as a regular system of jurisprudence. Thirdly, 
the same precise name of "the Law," Hlinn? Ha 
Thorah, which the modern Jews, and the writers 
of the New Testament apply to the Pentateuch in 
its present state, is apphed to the volume as it ex- 
isted in the days of Isaiah, of Micah, and of Joshua. 
Fourthly, it has never been pretended that the 
poetical and prophetic writings of the Old Testa- 
ment were composed by Ezra, or by any other than 
those persons whose names they bear ; the writings 
of Ezra (in the book that is called after him, and 
the two books of Chronicles, which present every 
internal evidence of proceeding from the same 
author,) though extremely pious, plain, and sensi- 
ble, do not bear any marks of the peculiar genius, 
the touching simplicity, the powerful description, 
the mihtary and political intelligence, the animated 
eloquence, and impassioned poetry, which distin- 
guish, in a remarkable degree, the historical chap- 
ters of the books of Moses. But it is certain that 
almost all the writers from David and Asaph down 
toHaggai, the contemporary of Zerubbabel, abound 
in references and allusions not only to the legal 
but the historical parts of the Pentateuch. Thus 
the garden of Cod. und its covering or guardian 



INSPIRATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 115 

cherubim, are spoken of by Ezekiel as topics 
which those whom he addressed understood with- 
out explanation. The manner of Abraham's call is 
noticed by Isaiah, and the various passages in 
Jacob's life by Hosea. The peculiarities of Mel- 
chizedech's character and situation were known to 
David; and the covenant which God made with Abra- 
ham to all the Jewish prophets. All, or nearly all, 
mention the destruction of the offending cities of 
the PentapoHs. To the captivity in Egypt allusions 
occur in the Psalms, in the prophecy of Micah, (the 
contemporary of king Jotham,) in Isaiah, who pro- 
phesied in the days of Uzziah, and in Jeremiah, 
who lived during the reign of the Jewish monarchy. 
The passage of the red sea, and the miracles 
wrought in the wilderness, are celebrated by Asaph. 
David, Isaiah, Amos, Habakkuk, and Micah. — 
Micah speaks also of the malice of Balak and Ba- 
laam.* If it were contended that the Pentateuch 
of Ezra was copied from the same traditions to 
which, and not to that Pentateuch, these passages 
of the prophets allude, it would, at least, estabhsh 
the credit of Ezra as a faithful collector of ancient 

* Ezek. xxviii. 14. Isa. xxix. 22. Hosea xii. 2 — 4. 12. Psalm 
ex. 4. Ixviii. 7. Ixxvii. passim. Ixxx. 8. Ixxxi. 5. Micah vi. 4. 
vii. 15. 20. Isa. iv. 5. Ixiii. 11. et sequ. Jer. ii. 6. xvi. 14. xxxi- 
32. Amos ii. 10. iii. 1. v. 25. Habbak. iii. 3 — 15. Haggai ii. 5. 
Micah vi. 5. The number of these citations might be greatly en- 
larged, but from the Psalms I have only adduced those which 
bear the names of David and Asaph, and I have avoided all those 
references in the other prophets which might admit of hesitation 
or ambiguity. 



116 SERMON v. 

history. But the coincidence not only of facts but 
expressions, is, in many of these instances, too 
close to admit of this solution ; and it would even, 
I apprehend, be possible to show, by a collection 
of the passages to which I refer, on the same plan 
with Lardner's " Collections of Citations of the New 
Testament in the Christian Fathers," that the pro- 
phets before Ezra had both seen and quoted the 
Mosaic history, a proof which would in itself be 
decisive of the question whether Ezra were the 
author of the Pentateuch. Fifthly, it might be 
asked, why, if Ezra were really engaged in so great 
a work as that of collecting and arranging the scat- 
tered and neglected annals of his country, why is 
no mention made of this illustrious labour, either 
in the acknowledged writings of Ezra himself, or 
those of his coadjutor Nehemiah ? Surely, if he 
did it openly, and as a faithful antiquary, it was at 
least as well worth recording as his exactness in 
weighing out the gold of the temple, or his dili- 
gence in the pubhc exposition of the law. Or, if 
he should be suspected of having imposed his col- 
lection on the world as the original work of Moses, 
yet would the previous loss and fortunate discovery 
of such an inestimable manuscript have been surely 
noticed with some degree of parade by those who 
thus sought to deceive, not only their contempo- 
raries, but posterity. 

As, therefore, neither the composition nor the 
discovery of the records now called Mosaic, is no- 
ticed either bv Ezra or Nehemiah, it is next to 



INSPIRATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 117 

certain that no such composition or pretended dis- 
covery took place at the time of which we are speak- 
ing ; and that the Pentateuch, as we now receive it, 
must have proceeded from a more ancient author. 
Above all, however, it should be recollected that 
these books, in their present form, are received not 
only by the Jews and Christians, but, with some few 
and unimportant variations, by the Samaritans also. 
Now there are only three points of time at which 
there is the remotest likelihood that such a volume 
could have obtained a sacred authority among these 
inveterate enemies of the Jewish name and nation ; 
the first when the Cuthoean settlers w^ere converted, 
by the orders of Shalmanezer king of Assyria, to a 
corrupt and mutilated Judaism; the second when 
Josiah reformed, by a short-lived and violent exer- 
tion of authority, the religious rites of the scattered 
remnant of Israel ; the third when Manasseh the 
Bon of Jehoida a]>ostatized from the worship of his 
ancestors, and established his schifc^matical temple 
on the summit of mount Gerizim»^ But if, with 
Vandale and Simon, we take the last of these dates, 
it is evident that Manasseh (degraded as he had 
been from his priestly character and his hereditary 
rank in the state, by Ezra's influence and authority) 
would never have taken with him to the sect and 
city of his refuge, a Scripture of Ezra's composition, 
or which, on Ezra's testimony alone, was received 
as the work of Moses. He would rather, it may be 

* 2 Kings xvii. 27, 28. xxiii. 2, 3. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 4, c5. 



118 SERMON V. 

thought, have made the novelty of His Scripture a 
pretext (and a very plausible pretext it v^rould have 
been) for the separation which he was meditating. 
Had Laud, for instance, composed a body of eccle- 
siastical history, it will hardly be said that the 
puritans were likely to have adopted it as a text 
book. And if Manasseh did really introduce the 
Pentateuch to the knowledge and veneration of the 
Samaritans, he can only have done so because it 
was a work in prescriptive possession of the minds 
of men, and one to which both Ezra and his 
opponents alike deferred as of ancient and sacred 
authority. But, in truth, if we beheve with the 
universal stream of Hebrew tradition, that the 
square or Babylonian letters 'were invariably em- 
ployed by the Jewish scribes, from the time of the 
removal of their nation to Shinar ; it is apparent 
that the more ancient and uncouth Phoenician cha- 
racter, in which the Samaritan Pentateuch still 
remains, is an evidence as satisfactory as can be 
reasonably expected, that this last nation did not 
derive their Scripture from Manasseh or any other 
Jew of the second tc mple. 

I am aware, indeed, that there are critics, who 
have attempted to show, from some remarkable 
false readings of the Samaritan Pentateuch, that it 
must have been originally copied from some manu- 
script in tlie Babylonian letter.* But, for such a 

* Prideaux ubi supra, p. 597-8. In opposition to whom see 
the admirable and convincing statement in Walton's Prolego^ 
mena to the Polyglott, ix. 74. 



INSPIRATION OP THE PENTATEUCH. 119 

transfer from a beautiful and convenient to a sin- 
gularly rude and perplexing alphabet, no reason 
has been assigned, and it would be, apparently, not 
easy to find any. To the priests who apostatized 
together with Manasseh, it would have been a 
hinderance instead of an advantage. To them a 
translation of the Hebrew text might, indeed, have 
been useful, and such a translation was, not many 
years after, prepared as an aid to those persons 
whose office it was to interpret after the public 
readers in the synagogue. But a mere transcrip- 
tion of the same Hebrew text into the Samaritan 
character, would no more have enabled a Samari- 
tan to understand the Scripture, than a transcrip- 
tion of the text of Luther's Bible from Gothic into 
Itahc letters, would confer on an Enghshman the 
power of reading German. Nay, more, as the 
Samaritan Pentateuch is without points, the public 
reader would have been incompetent, however 
familiar he might be with the alphabet, even to 
pronounce by rote the words for which such letters 
stood, without a previous knowledge of the Hebrew 
tongue. It is surely, therefore, more reasonable 
to account, with Mede and with Walton, in ano- 
ther manner for the circumstances so much insisted 
on; to conclude with these eminent scholars, that 
the Samaritans had really received their Pentateuch 
before the captivity, and to make our choice be- 
tween the only two epochs which remain, that of 
Josiah and that of Shalmanezer. 

But the short reign (short at least for so great a 



120 SERMON V. 

work as the retbrmation of a national religion) and 
the violent measures of Josiah, were little likely to 
obtain any permanent veneration for a book intro- 
duced by his authority. It was still less likely that, 
acting on Jewish principles, he would feel any 
anxiety for the instruction and orthodoxy of the 
heathen colonists of Assyria, and it is least likely 
of all that his authority or his severities can have 
extended over the garrisons of that conqueror to 
whom he was himself a tributary. There is, surely, 
then, abundant reason to conclude that the Sama- 
ritans received their sacred volume from the mis- 
sionary employed by their own monarch Shalman- 
ezer, to instruct the worshippers of Nergal and 
Ashima, in the service of the God of the land in 
which they were planted. 

But this missionary was himself a schismatic, a 
priest of the high places, a subject of the kingdom 
founded by Jeroboam, brought up in hereditary 
enmity against the house of David, and the priests 
of the Lord at Jerusalem. From them we may 
well believe such a person would adopt no novelties, 
and we have therefore the best reason to conclude 
that the Mosaic- volume, as we now possess it, was 
known and reverenced by the ten tribes of the 
house of Israel, as well as the two of Judah, and 
must therefore have been received before the sepa- 
ration of the monarchy, and while all the twelve 
tribes were under a common form of worship and 
government. 

And, having thus far traced the entire Pentateuclr 



INSPIRATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 121 

towards the age of its reputed author, I will ask 
whether any moment can be named, between the 
age of Solomon and that of Moses, in which, (had 
such a volume then first appeared, or had the law 
received that species of historical interpolation which 
the hypothesis that I am now examining supposes) 
an occurrence so important to the religious opinions 
of the Israehtes would not have been noticed by 
some of their religious or historical writers; I wdll 
go farther, and will venture to assert that the mu- 
tual jealousy of the tribes, so apparent throughout 
the whole history of the Judges, of Saul and David, 
the scattered residence and alternate duties of the 
priesthood, destroying all unity of purpose, and ob- 
viously and admirably calculated to operate against 
innovation of every kind, I will say that these cir- 
cumstances opposed a barrier, in the commonwealth 
of Israel, to forgery or interpolation Httle less than 
that which, in modern Christendom, preserves the 
purity of the New Testament inviolate. Nor shall 
I do more than barely notice the strong internal evi- 
dence afforded by the books of Moses of their hav- 
ing been written in the desert south-east of Pales- 
tine by one who was intimately acquainted with the 
different productions and peculiarities both of Ara- 
bia and Egypt, and who himself bore a principal part 
in the journey which he describes ; circumstances 
both of character and situation which will suit few 
other persons than Moses, and which no Israehte of 
a later age was likely to have possessed or success- 
fully conterfeited. 

VOL. 1. R 



122 SERMON V. 

But enough has, I trust, been said to estabhsh the 
antiquity of the Pentateuch; what further grounds 
there are for behef in its veracity and inspiration, 
may be examined in a future sermon. In the mean 
time, and long as I have ah'eady trespassed on your 
patience, I may yet, I trust, be pardoned if I earn- 
estly recall your attention to that solemn connexion 
which should subsist between the Christian's head 
and his heart ; between the evidences, the feelings, 
and the habitual practice of our religion ! It is not 
as a subject of antiquarian curiosity ; it is not as the 
earliest record of that picturesque and characteristic 
style of manners for which the east is still renown- 
ed, of which the singularity arrests our attention, 
and the simplicity appears to denote the youth and 
freshness of society : it is not for their interesting 
pathos, or the glowing strains of their poetry, that 
the Christian is enjoined to give a portion of his day 
to the records of an earlier revelation. It is there 
that we should trace the wrath of God made mani- 
fest against a guilty world ; yet arrested, yet dis- 
armed, yet absolutely turned into blessing by the 
efficacy of the foreseen atonement. It is there that 
we should learn to appreciate the strength of hu- 
man passions, and the weakness of human virtue, 
displayed in the melancholy story of the most fa- 
voured race of mankind, informed though they were 
by an unbroken line of prophets, and chastised or 
supported by a long succession of wonders and mi- 
racles. It is there that we should accustom our- 
selves to prize as they deserve our own advantages 



INSPIRATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. 123 

in Christ Jesus, when we compare the Israelite's \,/ 
hope of a contingent with our confidence in a com- 
plete redemption ; and his erudition, through sym- 
bols and shadows, with our almost plenary admis- 
sion into the mysteries of the kingdom of God ! 

But if our elevation be great, let us recollect that 
it mav be also dangerous ; that of him to whom 
much is given, our Master is accustomed to expect 
the more ; and that the more illustrious our insight 
into the great and connected scheme of God's wis- 
dom, and justice, and mercy, the greater should be 
our care that our knowledge may ripen into faith, 
and our faith may bring forth fruits of daily and 
hourly holiness. It should be ours to excel the 
ancient Israelites in our virtues as well as in our 
privileges, and it should be ours (as sensible from 
whence our virtues as well as our privileges are de- 
rived,) having done our all, to refer that all to the 
grace, the merits, and the redeeming mercy of Him 
whom Abraham was glad to behold from afar, for 
whose kingdom the code of Mount Sinai was given 
but to prepare the way ; and who was adored, in 
His day of fleshly humility, by the glorified spirits 
of Elias and of Moses ! 



SERMON VI 



CHARACTER OF MOSES. 

[Preached at Lincoln's Inn, Nov. 17, 1822. J 



Exodus iii. 14. 

And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am, and He said, 
Thus shall thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath 
sent me unto you. 

In my discourse of last Sunday I endeavoured to 
establish the great antiquity of the Pentateuch, and 
the consequent credibility of the statement which it 
contains as to the situation, the character, and the 
personal history of Moses. I proved that the book 
in question was reverenced by the nations both of 
Judah and of Israel, from the time of their division 
into separate and hostile monarchies ; that before 
this division, it was quoted by Solomon and by 
David, and alluded to in the almost contemporary 
history of Joshua; insomuch that no reasonable 
doubt can exist that the work which is now read in 
our churches is, in all essential points, the same with 
that which was a light to David's path, and which 



CHARACTER OF MOSES. 125 

regulated the solemn act of confederacy between 
Jehovah and his people in Gilgal.^ And it is pos- 
sible that, on this evidence alone, our belief in the 
Divine mission of Moses might be suffered to repose 
in safety. The events which his work records are 
such as, if untrue, no contemporary writer could 
have pubhshed without obtaining the name and 
treatment of a madman ; while, if miracles be a 
sufficient test of a menage from the Most High, few 
greater or less equiwcal miracles can be named 
than are related in the books of Moses. I know it 
has been sometimes attempted to soften down these 
awful dispensations into a chain of natural pheno- 
mena, insisted on and exaggerated beyond their 
actual amount or value by the fears of a supersti- 
tious crowd, and the fervour of oriental description. 
But it would be no easy task to persuade a nation, 
however superstitious or ignorant, that they or their 
fathers had fed on manna for forty years together, 
unless that production had really abounded to a 
degree which has never since been witnessed. And, 
however the sceptic may attempt to rid himself of 
the Egyptian plagues, the divided sea, and the 
cloudy pillar, yet if it may be granted, which no 
man denies, that the tribes of Israel were in the 
desert at all, the supply of food in such a situation 
(even during a far shorter time, and for a far less 
enormous multitude) must, apparently, involve a 
miracle. 

* Psalm cxix. 105. Joshua xxiv. 



126 SERMON VI. 

But waiving, for the present, such discussions, 
and assuming the truth of no other facts than those 
of which any competent historian may be well in- 
formed, and which no historian had any imagina- 
ble motive for misrepresenting, assuming only that 
Moses was really such a person as is described in 
his history ; so born of Israehtish parents ; so edu- 
cated by an Egyptian princess ; so long a resident in 
Arabia; and under such circumstances the preacher 
of such a theology ; even frolpthese facts alone, as 
recorded in the book of Exodus, a very cogent 
presumption arises that he was really an inspired 
messenger of the Most High. The reasons of this 
opinion I will now proceed to lay before you. 

In the case of all pretensions to the prophetic 
character, our belief of their truth or falsehood will 
be, in a great measure, determined by the character 
and situation of the person who brings them for- 
ward. And if we find in his general conduct no 
tokens of weakness or enthusiasm, if we can disco- 
ver in him no views of personal interest or aggran- 
disement, and if he be found, even to his own dis- 
advantage, consistent in his pursuit of that object 
which he professes to follow, we are the more dis- 
posed to admit a possibility, at least, that his claim 
may be not without foundation. But as to the ta- 
lents and genius of Moses, there can scarcely, with 
the readers of his work, be more than one opinion; 
an opinion ratified by the consent of all ages and 
all religious parties, from the sceptics of the pre- 
sent dav. to those ancient heathen writers who ad- 



CHARACTER OF MOSEfc>. 127 

mitted that the lawgiver of the Jews was a man of 
no common character, and who placed his name 
and his image amid the most illustrious of those 
illustrious men who had restrained the passions 
and improved the understandings of their fellow- 
creatures. Nor are his apparent fairness and can- 
dour less remarkable than his talents. On the con- 
trary, there are few men who can possibly read over 
the last four books of the Pentateuch without being 
impressed by the little stress which its author lays 
on his own achievements; by the brevity observed 
on every subject not immediately connected with 
his mission, and the simplicity which relates, with- 
out concealment or extenuation, those facts which 
an artful advocate would have been likely to pass 
over in silence. 

Of the first forty years of his life no more is told 
us than that he w^as brought up by Pharaoh's 
daughter. Of his situation and conduct during this 
period some few circumstances have reached us 
through other channels which, had it been the in- 
tention of the historian to give dignity to his own 
character, would, probably, have found a place in 
the narrative which I am now discussing. I will 
not, indeed, insist on all those traditionary honours 
with which the countrymen of Moses have, in later 
times, adorned him. I will not say with Josephus 
that, while yet a child, he trampled on the Egyptian 
diadem ; that he led forth in his early youth a vic- 
torious army against Ethiopia, and engaged by his 
valour and personal accomphshments the affections 



128 SERMON VI. 

of a Nubian princess.* But there is certainly no 
improbability in the opinion that he may have held 
during this time a considerable rank under the 
Egyptian monarchy. Even the acute and not over- 
credulous Michaehs is disposed to beheve that he 
served in the armies of Sesostris. Manetho, though 
for many reasons inclined to detract from his cha- 
racter, assigns him the rank of a priest in a country 
where the priests were all but sovereigns. And 
that tradition, at least, is confirmed by the inspired 
testimony of St. Stephen and St. Paul, which de- 
scribes him as " learned in all the wisdom of the 
Egyptians," as " mighty in word and deed," and as 
refusing to be adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, out 
of regard for the honour of the line of Abraham.f 
Of all these things, however, we find no mention 
in the book of Exodus. And while so strict a si- 
lence is maintained concerning the early achieve- 
ments of Moses, the author speaks without reserve 
of his personal defects and failings ; of his private 
quarrels with his kindred; of the unwillingness 
with which he, at first, undertook the message of 
the Most High ; and of the indiscretion and want 
of faith which shut him out from the land of Ca- 
naan.J Surely this seeming candour and simphcity 
may, in itself, go far to concihate our behef for 
many of the extraordinary things which he else- 
where relates to us. 

* Joseph. Ant. II. ix. x. Id. cont. Apion, T. 20. 

t Acts vii. 22. Hcb. xi. 24. 

1 Exod. iv. 10. iv. 1. Num. xx. 12. 24. Dcut. iv. 21. 



CHARACTER OF MOSES. 129 

Nor, further, is it easy to discover what motive 
Moses can have had for counterfeiting a commis- 
sion from Jehovah, or leading out, under such pre- 
tence, the tribes of Israel into the wilderness. We 
have no reason to believe that he was under any 
disgrace at the courts of Memphis or of Thebes, 
when he first, at the age of forty, took notice of his 
afflicted brethren;* nor have we any need of such 
a motive to account for a step which natural affec- 
tion must have prompted ; the wonder may rather 
seem to be that he had not visited them before. 
If, however, he at this time entertained any settled 
plans for their emancipation, it is evident that the 
first discouragement sufiiced to make him abandon 
them. He sets them, indeed an example of re- 
sistance to that oppression which ground them to 
the dust ; or, to speak more accurately, a sudden 
burst of indignation impels him to a homicide, 
which, when committed, instead of glorying in, he 
is anxious to conceal. He endeavours, also, to re- 
concile the differences, and, apparently, to arouse 
them to a sense of that strength which arises from 
union. But their first ingratitude deters him from 
the attempt, and awakens him to a sense of his 
danger. He flies into a distant region of Arabia, 
where, during forty years, he continues entirely 
separated from his family, till at an age when the 
fever of enthusiasm has generally passed away, and 
when men are seldom disposed or qualified for a 

* Exod. ii. 11. 
VOL. 1. S 



130 SERMON VI. , 

difficult and dangerous enterprise, he returns to the 
land where, if remembered at all, he was remem- 
bered as a murderer, to persuade an oppressive 
sovereign to permit a race of useful slaves to de- 
part from serving him. 

In all this there is surely no appearance of worldly 
cunning. Of worldly prudence there would be no 
appearance, unless the individual who thus acted 
had relied on a power beyond his own. In Egypt^ 
at first, as the adopted son of a princess, an initiated 
member of the ruling caste, he had every motive 
to desire the continuance of an order of things so 
favourable to his views, whether of ambition or of 
indulgence, or (if such were his turn of mind) of 
tranquil and studious retirement. In Midian he 
was no needy adventurer. He was the son-in-law 
of a Shekh, entrusted with those flocks which are 
the Arab's most valued property ; he had a wife 
and children ; nor does there seem any sufficient 
reason why, at his advanced age, without such a 
call as he professed to have received, he should 
have left the romantic valleys of Horeb on a dan- 
gerous and toilsome journey.* And what, let me 
again inquire, was the object which he proposed to 
himself in that journey ? There have, I know, 
been many instances in which the breast of the 
exile has been haunted by recollections of home? 

* See Patrick on Exod. ii. 16. for the rank of Jethro. The 
beauty and luxuriance of the valleys of Horeb are forcibly repre- 
sented by Niebuhr. Reisebeschreibung, torn. i. p. 294. et seq. 
And MiJller. Univers. Hist, book ix. sect. 4. 



CHARACTER OF MOSES. 131 

and where his longing after the scenes of infancy 
and the friends of maturer age has dragged him 
back, through every hazard, to the land of his for- 
mer happiness. But it was not in order to remain 
in Egypt that Moses sought to return thither. It 
was not to court again the favour of those whose 
parents had protected his helpless childhood; it 
was not to weave over again his ancient plans, if 
such he had entertained, of advancement in the 
state ; it was not to renew his former studies, and 
to pass the short remnant of his days among his 
early associates in the sacred shades of Memphis 
or Hehopolis. He returned that he might lead 
forth a band of stubborn and degraded slaves into 
a wilderness, and invade, at their head, a well armed 
and warlike nation, " a people great and tall, and 
cities fenced up to Heaven."* Nor, even in his 
fullest tide of success, does his conduct intimate 
a selfish ambition, or so much as what might be 
called a natural desire for the interest and aggran- 
dizement of his family. If he enjoyed, in some re* 
spects, the power of a king, yet was he a king with- 
out guards, without pomp, without wealth or lux- 
ury. In the administration of justice he voluntarily 
associated with himself the aristocracy of the tribes, 
and a council fortuitously chosen. For his own 
sons he obtained neither wealth, nor influence, nor 
dignity of any kind ; and in allotting an hereditary 
priesthood to his brother's children, he divided its 

* Deut. ix. 1.2. 



132 SERMON VI. 

powers more accurately from those of the civil 
governor than was done in any other nation of 
antiquity.* 

But still, it may be said, though we allow that 
Moses may have been actuated by patriotism only, 
or by a generous thirst of fame, in his labours as a 
leader and a lawgiver, still he may, like Numa or 
Mango Capac, have pretended a divine authority, 
in order to conciliate the respect, and compel the 
obedience of an ignorant and ferocious people. 
This has been the opinion usually professed by 
the more candid and philosophical unbelievers; 
and to this, even Josephus, in deference to his 
heathen readers, has given an undue degree of 
countenance.t 

But, had this been the case, a crafty lawgiver 
would certainly have selected that system of theo- 
logy which was most adapted to the former preju- 
dices of those whom he desired to persuade. At all 
events he would not have fixed on a scheme of faith 
and worship which increased, by its repugnance 
from all their previous habits, the unavoidable and 
inherent difficulties of his undertaking. The people 

* The judge or civil magistrate was, by the original Mosaic 
constitution, supposed to be a layman, and, as such, distinguish- 
ed from the priest. Deut. xvii. 9 — 12. And though the priest 
was his assessor, the authority of this last appears to have been 
only circa res sacras. 

•f Joseph, cont. Apion. Op. torn. ii. p. 482. romros fisv Sij <ng 

aiiTOi rifiuv 6 voiio&s<rr\g^ ou yorig, ouS" anfarst^M^ ctXX' oJov nfOL^a, roTg 

"EXXijfl'iv auj^ouCiv tov Mivw ysyovivoLi, >.ui fjisr' aCrov rovg aXXouc 
voikQ&sras, y.. r. X, 



CHARACTER OF MOSES. 133 

to whom Moses came had sojourned for, at least, 
two centuries (perhaps for four) in a land of poly- 
theists and idolaters. They are expressly said to 
have been addicted to those vanities of which the 
soil of Egypt was, through all ancient times, the 
foul and fruitful mother. There was no single point 
on which they were so much inclined to dispute the 
authority of Moses as on the observance of that 
pure and perfect theism which he laboured to intro- 
duce among them. When the prophet had been 
absent though but for forty days, he found them^ 
on his return, adoring the Egyptian Apis, and his 
latter days were embittered by their headlong re- 
lapse into the worship of the idols of Moab. Nor 
do we need any further proof of their deep-rooted 
attachment to the superstitions of the land in which 
they had so long sojourned, than the fact that three 
fourths of the ritual laws enjoined them have refer- 
ence to the customs of Egypt either as articles of 
peace, or as directly preventive and prohibitory. 
Under such circumstances, how gladly would a mere 
worldly legislator have suffered their religious blind- 
ness to remain undisturbed, while he concentrated 
his efforts to secure their temporal happiness ; and 
have compounded for their false gods, so he himself 
might hope to be reverenced and obeyed as a 
deity ! 

But further, let us suppose that Moses might pos- 
sibly have been actuated not merely by patriotism, 
but by such a degree of zeal for the doctrine of the 
Divine Unity as might induce, without personal in- 



134 SERMON Vf. 

terest, or personal ambition, a man of powerful mind 
and long experience to support a solemn truth 
through the instrumentahty of a life-long imposture. 
Let us suppose all this (which of itself involves 
something very like a contradiction, and which is 
directly contrary to the practice of those sages of 
the western world who arrived, by whatever acci- 
dent, at a knowledge of the one Almighty Being,) 
still it is plain that his sincerity alone would have 
gone no great way in commanding success ; and 
that he not only taught such a doctrine, but event- 
ually obtained its reception, may, under such cir- 
cumstances as I have mentioned, be well supposed 
to imply that he had really some extraordinary and 
supernatural means of persuading and compelling 
the acquiescence of those around him. 

But, still more, what probability (I will say what 
possibihty) was there that a man circumstanced like 
Moses, could, without a Divine Revelation, have 
invented a religious system which neither acknow- 
ledged a plurality of gods, nor admitted any visible 
symbol of the Deity ? 

Moses was educated, from his early childhood, by 
an Egyptian princess ; he is represented by the 
Egyptians themselves as a member of their priest- 
hood ; learned in all their wisdom ; exercised in all 
their doctrines ; and cmbued, it must almost neces- 
sarily follow, with all their predilections and their 
prejudices. But though it is probable (as Jablonski 
has maintained) that, amid their gross superstitions, 
the Egyptians stUl preserved a dim and twilight 



CHARACTER OF MOSES. 135 

knowledge of the one Supreme Deity, yet is it certain 
that the service which belongs to Him alone they 
had ahenated to whole armies of imaginary or evil 
demons; and that of all these subaltern immortals, 
as well as of the great God and Father of all, they 
had adopted the most absurd and degrading symbols. 
Now, if the understanding of Moses had not been 
really enlightened by a supernatural effusion of 
knowledge, we should have expected in him either 
a warm defender of those systems in which he had 
been educated, or, at most, we should have ex- 
pected his views of reformation to terminate with 
the correction or abscission of some few of their 
more disgusting extravagances. The doctrine of 
one supreme and of many inferior deities is, of all 
erroneous opinions, that which unassisted reason is 
least likely to refute ; inasmuch as there is nothing 
in mere reason which forbids the possibility of a 
gradation of beings in the unseen world, to whom 
the government of God's works may be committed 
by Him, and who, therefore, as exercising a discre- 
tionary power over those beneath them, may be no 
improper objects of supplication or thanksgiving to 
those who are dependent on their will. And though 
the impropriety be more glaring which pictures God 
in a bodily form, and offers our prayers to the hfe- 
less image ; yet so prone is man to assist his fancy 
with these dangerous allies, that neither polytheism 
nor idolatry were discouraged or forsaken by those 
ancient philosophers who possessed the clearest 
views of the Divine Nature and Unity. It is thus 



13G SERMON VJ. 

that Pythagoras begins his code of morals with an 
injunction to "worship the Gods" (in the plura^ 
number) "according to the Grecian law." It is 
thus that Plato, in his visionary republic, is actually 
intolerant and persecuting towards those, whoever 
they might be, who dissented from the popular ido- 
latry;* and it is thus that even the wise and con- 
scientious Socrates ended his life with an act of 
worship to an inferior deity. All these indeed, 
if not polytheists, were, in the Platonic sense of the 
word, most strictly and conscientiously polydsemon- 
ists; and none, however they might be disgusted 
with the particular symbols employed by the Egyp- 
tian mystics, have^xpressed aiiy horror of visible 
representation in the abstract, whether of the lesser 
gods, or of the Great and Parent Divinity. 

We find, indeed, but too well, from the cor- 
ruption of many Christian Churches, how closely 
both polytheism and idolatry are entwined with the 
weakness of our mortal nature. We find, in the 
example of our Greek and Roman brethren, how 
strangely possible it is for the best hearts and the 
strongest heads, assisted by the clearest light of 
revelation, to persist, nevertheless, in practices and 
doctrines which generically, at least, if not specifi- 
cally, resemble those which in the law of Moses are 
denounced as most displeasing to Jehovah. How 
then shall we account for the fact that the eyes of 
an Egyptian priest, four hundred years before the 

* Plato : Phaedo. 



CHARACTER OF MOSES. 137 

Trojan war, were open to those errors of which 
neither Pythagoras, nor Socrates, nor Plato, nor 
Porphyry, nor Bellarmine, nor Pascal, perceived 
the falsehood and vanity; unless we admit the solu- 
tion which that priest himself has given us, that 
God revealed to him those truths, which, when dis- 
covered, seem so obvious to the reason of man, but 
to discover whicfj the unassisted reason of all man- 
kind has been ineffectual. 

Is it said that the knowledge which Moses thus 
imparted to others he might have himself received 
from his ancestors of the House of Israel, from 
those who had, perhaps, conversed with Levi, or 
who had retained some tradition of the fact that 
Jacob and Abraham had put away the Mesopota- 
mian idols from their families ? Let it be recol- 
lected that Moses was not brought up by his pa= 
rents; from his infancy his education had been 
Egyptian, and till he was near forty years old, he 
seems to have had little, if any, intercourse with 
his enslaved and degraded countrymen ; even these 
countrymen themselves, as is apparent from the 
book of Joshua, were addicted, at the time of their 
emigration from Egypt, to all the superstitions of 
that country;* and the probability is but small that 
Moses could have derived from them a system so 
pure and perfect as that which he enforced on their 
obedience in the wilderness. Nor have we any better 
reason than a tradition of the modern rabbins for 

* Joshua xxiv. 14. Ezek. xxiii. 3. 8. 
VOL. I. T 



138 SERMON VI. 

supposing that the tribe of Levi, or the family ot 
Amram had escaped this general infatuation * 

In the narrative, indeed, which Moses has given 
of his first vision in the valley of Horeb, he repre- 
sents both his countrymen and himself as, to that 
moment, ignorant of the particular Deity who had 
been worshipped by their Syrian ancestors : " When 
I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say 
unto them, the God of your fathers hath sent me 
unto you, and they shall say to me what is His 
name, what shall I say unto them ?"t But if either 
the name of " Adonai," as appropriate to the Su- 
preme Being, or of " El Shaddai," by which God 
had made Himself known to Abraham ; or if the 
mere fact had been recollected that such a Divine 
Person, distinct and differing from the usual deities 
of the Egyptians, had been adored by their fathers^ 
it is plain that neither the Israelites would have 
required an explanation of this kind, nor would 
Moses, in the event of their making the demand, 
have been unable to give them satisfaction. And, 
as no reason can be assigned why Moses either in a 
real conversation with God, or in the narrative of a 
pretended conversation with Him, should have as- 
sumed an ignorance which he did not feel, it follows 
that he must, at this time, have been himself a 

* Maimonides de Idololatria, I. § x. In mundo natio fuit quae 
Deum novit, donee processere Israeli in^gyptodies. Illic enim 
Tcdierunt ad discendos illorum mores ct idola exemplo eornm 
colenda, excepta tribuliovi. 

+ Exod. iii. IS. 



CHARACTER OF MOSES. 139 

polytheist as well as the Egyptians, and have im- 
puted to some one of the many subordinate deities, 
and not to the one Almighty, the Glory before 
whose blaze he was standing. 

We must, then, as I conceive, return to our late 
alternative ; and if this vision were a fable, and if 
the theology which Moses taught were not supers 
naturally revealed to him, we must suppose an 
Egyptian priest, with all the disadvantages and pre- 
judices of his age, his country, and his profession, 
to have invented a purer creed than either Socrates 
or Plato could conceive, and of which, with all their 
light, the practice of many Christian sects falls 
vastly short. And is not this more hard to believe 
than that the Most High, in pity to the blindness 
of His creatures, may have condescended to make 
known to them in person His Divine Nature, and 
the nature of that service which He requires from 
them ? It may safely, then, be concluded, that the 
narrative of Moses is true, that the vision which 
he has described did really appear to him inHoreb, 
and that the message which he bore to his people 
was truly from the Almighty. 

On the second of those points to which I have 
professed to call your attention, the Person, namely, 
who, under such a form and in such words ad- 
dressed him, I should hardly have thought it neces- 
sary to bestow any time or argument ; content with 
the determination of the most eminent Fathers, and 
the great body of the Christian Church, that He 
who is called by Moses, in one place, " Jehovah," 



140 SERMON VL 

and in another, *• Jehovah's angel," is, in fact, no 
otlier than the Ms/ax^jg BouX% "AyysXos of the early 
Christians ; the N*lD ^o ^^ the Rabbins, and the 
" Son of Man " of Daniel; the person who, though 
Himself divine and mysteriously connected with 
the Deity, is yet the "Messenger," or "Angel," 
(the words have the same meaning,) by whom the 
unseen and unapproachable God has chiefly de- 
clared Himself to His creatures. That, however, 
has been asserted by some inconsiderate though 
zealous Christians, which, if true, would subvert 
the foundation of this faith, so ancient and so ge- 
neral, that a created angel may be employed by 
God to act in His name and represent His Person : 
and even that three angels thus deputed may be 
called God in Scripture, and adored as a fit symbol 
of the blessed and glorious Trinity.* I will, there- 
fore, so far notice the subject as to urge on your 
consideration, first, that no created being can be 
a fit representative of the Infinite Creator; and 
that He who under so severe penalties has prohi- 
bited all idolatry, would never have encouraged 
His servants to regard any inferior being in the 
same light, under the same name, and with the 
same reverence as Himself Yet this must have 
been the case had He been only a created Angel 
with whom Abraham pleaded for the pardon of the 
offending cities, in whose presence Moses and 
.Toshua laid aside their sandals, and to whom are 

* ParkJiui'st, &r. 



CHARACTER OF MOSES. 141 

assigned, in many passages of scripture, the titles 
and the homage which God elsewhere demands as 
His own exclusive due. 

But, secondly, the promise even of an earthly 
king is, both in the letter and the spirit, sacred. 
If he has flattered his subjects with the hopes of 
admission to his presence, it is certain that he must 
not mock their hopes with an unreal performance. 
He cannot, without prevarication, impose on their 
ignorance a servant masked in his robes, the 
mimic of his state, and the empty phantom of his 
majesty. But whom did the elders of Israel go up 
into the mount to see } Who was it whose pre- 
sence Moses prayed to look upon, and the skirts 
and passing train of whose glory were revealed to 
him as he lay beneath the rock in Horeb ?* Was 
this any other than " the Lord gracious and 
mighty," the Eternal, the God of Israel } Then 
was the promise of the Most High of none effect, 
and His word to man made vain ! Was it the God 
and Father of all ? Why then is the same Person 
repeatedly called an angel ? or how has St. Paul 
declared by the Holy Ghost that " no man hath 
seen God at any time.f Surely there is no way to 
solve these difficulties, unless we admit that the 
Fountain of Deity Himself has never vouchsafed 
His presence to the eyes of men, but that it was 
the " God of God," the " Light of Light," the 

* Exod. xxiv. 9, 10, 11. xxxiii, 18, xxxiv, 5. 6. 
t 1 John iv, 12. 



142 SERMON VI. 

" @sog ^Akvidivos h ©sou 'axtj^ivou, the only begotten Son 
which is in the bosom of the Father, who has, on 
these occasions, declared Him." 

Nor need we fear that, by referring these dif- 
ferent manifestations of God's glory to the Second 
Person in the Trinity, we ascribe to the first in 
that mysterious union a state of epicurean repose, 
or exclude, either directly or by consequence, " the 
supreme God from the government of the world." 
The objects of our adoration, though personally 
and officially distinct, are in nature and operation 
One ; where any of the three is, we acknowledge 
the whole Godhead to be in Him and working by 
Him ; and we adore the Father and the Spirit in 
the visible glory of the Word, no less than in the 
miraculous descent of the Holy Ghost, we conceive 
the will and power of the Father and the Word to 
have been made manifest. 

It was, then, the Word of God, the Saviour of 
the world, who Himself, in after ages, was made 
flesh and dwelt among us, whose voice was heard, 
and fiery presence seen by Moses amid the rocks 
of Arabia. Nor can we require a stronger proof 
than this identity of operation under either cove- 
nant, of the connexion between every part of God's 
plan for the redemption of mankind; and that it 
was not enough for mankind to acknowledge the 
divine commission of Moses, unless their veneration 
travelled on to His name of whom Moses spake, and 
for whose advent and sacrifice the institutions of 
Moses prepared the way. And it now only remains 



CHARACTER OF MOSES. 143 

for me to offer a few observations on the meaning 
of that title which the Lord, on this occasion, 
assumed. " I Am that I Am," and " I Am hath 
sent thee unto them." 

It is evident that, in the first and most obvious 
apphcation of the words, they were intended to 
correct that ignorance of the Divine Nature which 
possessed both the Israehtes and Moses himself, 
and which prompted the latter to inquire what God 
that was of the many whom the nations worshipped 
who had undertaken the patronage and protection of 
the oppressed peasantry of Goshen ? Was it Pthe,or 
Nuth, or On, the gods of Memphis and HeHopo- 
lis ? Was it Chemosh the tutelary idol of Moab ? 
Was it that spirit who, under the name of Baal, 
was believed to guide the chariot of the sun ? Or 
Astarte the queen of Heaven ? In answer to all 
such erroneous opinions, and to forbid all compari- 
sons of the Divine Nature with any false or subal- 
tern spirits, the answer of Jehovah is decided and 
satisfactory. It lays claim to a divinity solitary 
and unrivalled, to be the One who is^ and from 
whom all other living things derive their secondary 
being ; who can tolerate no partner in His throne, 
nor share His name and power with any inferior 
intelligence. " I Am hath sent thee unto them." 
It is, also, evident that by this phrase an everlast- 
ing being is denoted, a now without beginning or 
end ; imperishable and which cannot be changed. 

And hence two consequences follow. First, it 
was, as we have seen, the Word of God who took 



144 SERMON VI. 

to Himself this title, even as in after days, and 
during the time of His incarnation, He employed 
the same tense of precisely the same verb. " I Am" 
in asserting His own existence anterior to the birth 
of Abraham.* And, accordingly, by this text those 
Christians are convicted of error who suppose, with 
Arius, that Christ has had a beginning, or that in 
the trinity which we worship any one is before or 
after the other. 

The second inference is that awful comparison 
between a temporal and eternal existence, which is 
so often enforced and enlarged on by the authors 
of the Sacred Volume as a motive for deep reverence 
toward God on the part of all God's creatures, and 
as an inducement to raise our thoughts above the 
limits of a perishable world, to Him in whose pre- 
sence is deathless life, and at whose right hand 
there are pleasures for evermore. " Of Old hast 
thou laid the foundation of the earth; and the 
Heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall 
perish, but Thou shalt endure, yea all of them 
shall wax old like a garment, as a vesture shalt 
Thou change them and they shall be changed, 
but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have 
no end."t 

If God then be eternal, how dreadful must His 
wrath be esteemed, whose power never passeth 
away, neither does His purpose change -, who in the 
same light in which He views any action or thought 

* 8t. John viii. 58. t Psalm cii. 25, 26, 27. 



CHARACTER OF MOSES. 145 

of ours to day, must continue to view it through 
countless ages; whose laws are without repeal, 
and His purposes, though from the first conditional 
on our actions, are, so far as He is Himself con- 
cerned, without repentance or shadow of turning ! 
If God is for ever^ how ill do we calculate in pre- 
ferring to His love and protection the span of hap- 
piness which His visible creation can offer, the 
fashion of this world which is so soon to pass away 
into silence ! Yea, rather, forasmuch as the things 
around us, which are all one day to be dissolved, 
are so goodly and glorious during their stage of 
momentary existence, " if God so clothe the grass 
of the field which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast 
into the oven ;"* if this earth which, ere long, 
must melt with fervent heat, is now so richly 
adorned with fruits and flowers by the lavish mu- 
nificence of its Creator ; if the firmament which is 
one day to wither like a parched scroll, is now set 
thick with suns, and all nature, even in this its 
ruined state, is teeming with whatever can supply 
the wants, whatever can dehght the senses of us, 
poor exiles from Paradise ; what may we not anti- 
cipate from the pov/er and mercy of the Most High 
in that new Heaven and new earth, whose founda- 
tions shall be laid from everlasting, and where they 
whom He loves, and who have lovingly served Him 
shall be gathered as the wheat into His garner ! 

* Matt. VI. 30. 

VOL. r V 



SERMON Vil 



GOD'S DEALINGS WITH PHARAOH. 

[Preached before the University of Oxford, 1818.] 



Exodus ix. 16. 
In very deed for this cause I have raised thee up, for to shoiu 
in thee my power, and that my name may he declared 
throughout all the earth. 

These words were spoken by Moses, in the name 
of God, to that unhappy king of Egypt who, for 
the visitations to which he was exposed, and his 
obstinate hardness under them, stands alone in the 
history of the ancient world, as a dreadful monu- 
ment of the power of the Most High, and of the folly 
and perverseness of human nature. Ten times were 
plagues inflicted on himself and his people, the very 
least of which might have sufficed to humble the 
proudest heart, and awaken the most careless and 
incredulous spirit to attention, and conviction, and 
obedience. Ten times, while the hand of the Al- 
mighty as yet lay heavy on his land, did Pharaoh 
humble himself before Jehovah's prophet, and pro- 
mise, with apparent sincerity, a complete and 
immediate compliance ; and ten times did he fly 
back from his word so soon as his punishment was 
withdrawn, till the end was answered for which he 
had been endured so long, till llie span was pant 



GOD'S DEALINGS WITH PHARAOH. 147 

to which his guih and his power were hmited, and 
the chained sea was let loose to quench that frantic 
impiety which had seemed but to gather fresh 
strength from every former dispensation, whether 
of vengeance or of mercy. 

All this, indeed, is strange, but this is not, to 
human ears, the strangest part of Pharaoh's history. 
Other fruitful lands, besides Egypt, have been, for 
a time, made barren through " the wickedness of 
them that dwelt therein." * Other nations, besides 
the children of Misraim, have smarted for their 
ruler's folly; and other kings, besides the one 
whose history we are now examining, have by their 
sins incurred the anger of Heaven, and by their 
blindness courted destruction. When Spain, by 
an opposite crime to that of the Egyptians in the 
time of Moses, expelled her Morisco brethren from 
those valleys which were, in their industrious hands, 
as another garden of Eden, how surely did she 
entail the curse of poverty on her soil, and in how' 
legible and lasting characters has God's anger 
since been written on her rocks, her mountains, and 
her deserted fields ! How strangely has the des- 
potism of the Sultans reduced to an uniform barba- 
rism and sterility the countries once most favoured 
by knowledge and genius, by nature and improve- 
ment ; and how strangely have we ourselves beheld 
a bold, and wise, and wary conqueror entangled in 
those snares which his ambition was framing for 
mankind, and, in spite of warning to avoid his 

"^ Psalm cvii. 34. 



148 SERMON VI L 

calamities, in spite of opportunity to retrieve them^ 
despising security and empire in the pursuit of yet 
further power, and, hke Pharaoh, incurring a ruin 
which lay before him in the broad book of nature, 
as calculable as the moon, and as certain as the 
return of the seasons ! 

In the great mass, indeed, of human misery, by 
whatever secondary cause produced, by the wick- 
edness of mankind, or by the phenomena of nature ; 
the plagues of Egypt may seem to sink into insig- 
nificance. Streams broader than the Nile flowed 
with a worse crimson to the sea, when Attila, the 
scourge of God, was suffered by His providence to 
pass the Danube, and when Timur laid waste the 
regions round Euphrates ; and the human beings 
who miserably perished during the single expedi- 
tion of Xerxes, may have exceeded many times the 
number of first-born children whom the wrath of 
Jehovah cut off on the night of the passover. A 
volcano, an earthquake, an inundation, a famine, or 
a pestilence, are agents of destruction more sweep- 
ing by far, though, from their comparative fre- 
quency, less awful, perhaps, and terrible than those 
miraculous inflictions which are recorded in the 
early chapters of Exodus. Nor can it be regarded 
by the rational deist as in itself impossible, or as 
any probable impeachment of the Divine goodness, 
that the same Providence which, in the ordinary 
course of nature, dispenses, for wise and gracious 
purposes, these other and more formidable plagues, 
should, in a remarkable instance, and where the 



GOD'S DEALINGS WITH PHAROAH. 149 

honour of his name was concerned, have more 
hghtly, though not more conspicuously, afflicted a 
particular sovereign and his subjects. These truths 
it is well and wise to bear in our constant recollec- 
tion while we are reading of those dispensations 
which are emphatically called " the wars of the 
Lord" in the Old Testament ;* both as evincing a 
close and constant analogy between the usual and 
natural operations of the Deity in the world, and 
those rarer instances in which His interference has 
been immediate and visible, and as proving that the 
objections which are often inconsiderately advanc- 
ed against these last must, if well founded, extend 
further than their authors desire ; must detract 
from the general no less than from the particular 
Providence of God, and lay the axe to the root of 
natural as well as of revealed religion. 

But it is not the amount of the calamities in- 
flicted on Pharaoh and his subjects ; it is not the 
obstinacy of Pharaoh under them ; it is not the fact 
that these sufferings were inflicted by God as pu- 
nishments of long-continued oppression, and in 
order to the deliverance of three millions of en- 
slaved and overburthened peasantry, and the esta- 
blishment of a nation who were to preserve His 
name and His prophecies, through a thousand years 
of darkness, to the birth of Him in whom all nations 
were to receive light ; they are not these circum- 
stances which are so much calculated to excite 
our astonishment and our unbeheving murmurs. 

* Num. xxi. 14. 



150 SERMON VIL 

as the fact that the obduracy which called down 
these chastisements was itself the work of the Most 
High. 

By God Himself it had been declared to Moses 
beforehand, " I will harden Pharoah's heart, that 
he shall not let the people go."^ Of God Himself 
it is expressly and repeatedly asserted by His pro- 
phet, " And the Lord hardened Pharoah's heart 
and the hearts of his servants." And in the words 
of the text we find the yet more explicit and, if 
possible, the yet more perplexing declaration that 
Pharaoh was absolutely raised up and placed, or 
continued, in his appropriate situation as a proper 
subject on whom, and at whose expense, the power 
of God might be displayed in the severest inflictions 
of His displeasure. " In very deed for this cause 
have I raised thee up, that I might show in thee 
my power, and that my name might be declared 
throughout all the earth." 

This is a hard saying, unquestionably, and one 
which, as it has been generally understood, appears 
impossible to be reconciled with our natural and 
instinctive ideas of the justice and goodness of 
the Most High, no less than with many other and 
equally forcible passages of Scripture in which His 
dealings with mankind are spoken of and vindi- 
cated. To cause a man to sin, and then to punish 
him for sinning ; to send warnings which are not 
even designed to produce an effect on him who re- 
ceives them, and to create any sentient being for 

■^- Exod. iv. 21. 



GOB'S DEALINGS WITH PHARAOH. 151 

no other purpose than to be guilty and miserable ; 
this were a conduct which, as it would be horribly 
wicked in a finite intelligence, so it cannot without 
blasphemy be ascribed for a moment to the All-just, 
the All-wise, the All-merciful Father of nature ! 

Nor will the answer suffice which is sometimes 
rendered, in the words of St. Paul when speaking 
on a very different subject, namely, that we are all 
in the power o( God as clay in the hands of the 
potter ; that He may frame " one vessel unto honour 
and another unto dishonour ;"* and that while some 
of His creatures may be originally set apart by His 
will for honour and happiness, there may be others 
destined by the same free pleasure to set forth His 
power and terror. 

For, in the first place, this argument, understand 
it as we please, will not apply to the difficulty under 
discussion, since the question is not of possibility 
or abstract right, but of probabihty, of analogy, of 
conformity to other declarations of God himself. 
We do not ask whether God has the power, but 
whether He has the will to pursue the line of con- 
duct imputed to him ; and if that conduct appears 
to us unjust or unmerciful, we are naturally led to 
conclude that, though God may do any thing which 
pleases Him, He will not please to do that which 
is repugnant to those attributes of His nature under 
which we know Him best, and by which He has 
most clearly revealed himself to our adoration and 
our affection. 



152 8KHM0N VIL 

Nor do we gain any thing toward the removal of 
our difficulties by an addition of that system which 
Augustin brought into the Christian Church, and 
which, with some qualifying clauses calculated to 
soften its apparent rigour, is, to this day, the dis- 
tinctive and favourite doctrine of no inconsiderable 
multitude of believers. It is no justification, it is 
no extenuation of a particular act of apparent in- 
justice and cruelty, to say that it is one part of a 
vast scheme abounding in similar actions ; that the 
Father of mercy (Great God ! that man should thus 
presume to speak of Thee !) is not cruel to Pharaoh 
alone, but to the great majority of His creatures. 
Of the supporters of the system of Calvin, God for- 
bid that I should speak otherwise than with respect 
and affection, as of our brethren and fellow-labourers 
in the Lord, and as of those who, with one single 
error, hold the truth in a sincerity which no man 
can impeach, and in a godly diligence which may 
make too many of our party shed tears for our com- 
parative supineness. Of the system itself I should 
desire to express myself with that caution which is 
due to the names of Augustin, of Calvin, and of 
Beza, of Jansenius, and of Pascal. But let God be 
true, even if every man be accounted a bar !* It 
is impossible that a system which, in its apparent 
consequences, destroys the principles of moral 
agency in man, and arraigns the truth and justice 
of Him from whom all truth and justice flow, it is 
impossible that a system of this kind can be from 

Koninns lii. 1. 



GOD'S DEALINGS WITH PHARAOH. i53 

(iod, or can be well-pleasing to Him. The meta- 
physical difficulties, and they are many and grave, 
which perplex the Arminian hypothesis, may be 
inscrutable to our present faculties, or may be per- 
mitted to try our faith through the whole course of 
this mortal pilgrimage. But though we should be 
unable to reconcile them with the power and wis- 
dom of God, it is evident that they leave His mercy 
and His truth unimpaired j and they are these last 
which of all God's attributes are the most important 
to His fallen creatures, inasmuch as they are these 
last, and these last alone, which give us hope of 
sanctification in this world, and of happiness in the 
world which is to succeed it ! 

But I have said that, in that passage of St. Paul 
which is urged as a solution of the history of Pha- 
raoh, the apostle is treating of a very different sub- 
ject. A reference indeed to the tenth chapter of 
Romans may convince us, as I conceive, that it is 
not the election of one individual and the reproba- 
tion of another to eternal life or to eternal misery, 
but the appointment of different nations to different 
parts in the general scheme of God's providence, 
which is the scope and purport of his argument; 
that not Jacob and Esau, but Israel and Edom, not 
Cornelius and Caiaphas, but the Gentile and the 
Jew, not the final sentence of individuals in the life 
to come, but the admission or rejection of large 
bodies of men from certain blessings and privileges 
in the world which now is, which only is the topic 
under discussion. And it becomes us, therefore, to 

VOL. I. X 



154 SERMON VII, 

seek some different solution of the present problem 
than that which is usually drawn from the absolute 
sovereignty of Jehovah. 

Accordingly, there are others who maintain that 
when God is said to have hardened Pharaoh's heart, 
nothing more is intended than that He suffered him 
to harden his own heart, that He left him to the 
natural consequences of his own unbridled pride 
and passion, and did not interpose with His gracious 
influences to soften and subdue that corruption of 
his nature which of itself was sufficient, without 
further aid, to overpower not only his better prin- 
ciples, but his natural prudence and discretion 
And this interpretation they support by^everal re- 
markable passages in the same chapters of Exodus 
to which I have already referred, and which ascribe 
to Pharaoh himself and his own agency that indu- 
ration which, as we have seen, is in others ascribed 
to the Lord. Thus, it is said of Pharaoh, in the 
seventh chapter and the twenty-third verse, that 
" he did not set his heart" to profit by the warnings 
which had been given him. It is said in the eighth 
chapter, that "when Pharaoh saw that there was re- 
spite, he hardened his heart and hearkened not unto 
them ;"* and at the end of the same chapter, that 
" Pharaoh hardened his heart " after the plague of 
the flies also.t Nay more ; they urge, that in the 
only place in the seventh chapter where, according 
to our translation, the Lord is said to have " hard- 
ened Pharaoh's heart,"J the original and all the best 

* Ver. 15. t Ver. H2. t Vor. 18. 



GOD'S DEALINGS WITH PHARAOH. 155 

versions say merely that the " heart of Pharaoh 
was hardened." And they conclude that, even if 
God had meditated the ruin of the Egyptian king, 
it is apparent that nothing more was necessary than 
thus to leave him to himself, inasmuch as the All- 
wise knew beforehand, and had beforehand declared 
to Moses, the obstinate and perverse spirit to whom 
the prophet was His messenger. " I am sure," said 
the Lord in Horeb, " that the king of Egypt will 
not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand."* Ac- 
cordingly they urge, that Pharoah himself was the 
only agent in his own destruction, and that it was the 
foreknowledge,not the predetermination of theMost 
High, whicli induced him thus to express Himself 
In all this there is doubtless much which is true 
but to the peculiar difficulties of the case it can 
scarcely be said to be relevant. The passages 
which are alleged to favour this opinion, and where 
Pharaoh is said to have hardened his own heart, 
and not to have set his heart to understand the will 
of the Lord, will only prove, (what the most un- 
bending Calvinist does not deny) that the imme- 
diate cause of Pharaoh's hardness and impenitence 
is to be sought for in his own perverse will, and 
his own ungoverned passions. If we cast a cripple 
into a pool, it is vain to pretend that our hand is 
not upon him, and that he sinks through the infir- 
mity of his hmbs which prevents his swimming. 
And, if God placed Pharoah in a situation where, 
without repentance, he must needs be undone. 

* Exod. iii. 19. 



156 SERMON VII. 

while He withheld from him that grace without 
which no man can repent, it is evident that the 
Almighty's pleasure was, if not the immediate, yet 
doubtless, the primary and efficient cause of his 
destruction. 

Nor does there seem any sufficient reason for a 
yet minuter distinction which has been made by 
some learned and ingenious men, that, during the 
earlier plagues, it was still in the power of Pharaoh 
through grace, to awaken to his true interests, and 
humble himself Avith an effectual and prevailing 
repentance ; and that it was not till after the plague 
of the boils that the decree of God went forth 
against him, and his heart was sealed up in impeni- 
tence. Accor(iing to these commentators, who are 
certainly here, as in the former instance, counte- 
nanced by the earlier versions, the word which we 
render "raising up," will more properly signify 
" preserved," and the sense will be that Pharaoh, 
having provoked God by his obstinacy under the 
seven former inffictions, would have been destroyed 
in the eighth if he had not been spared for another 
and a more exemplary punishment. But, in the 
first place, it is certain that before Moses had seen 
Pharaoh at all, the Almighty had already assigned 
as a reason why even the first plague would not 
be effi3ctual,that"He" (Jehovah) would harden the 
king of Efifypt's heart ; and as there is no appear- 
ance that any of the plagues but the last, however 
troublesome and alarming, were of a mortal nature. 
It is not easy to say how Pharaoh had been pecu-^ 



GOD'S DEALINGS WITH PHARAOH. 157 

liarly preserved or spared in calamities which he 
shared with the meanest of his subjects. 

On the whole, then, we must grant that God does 
really represent himself as the cause of Pharaoh's 
frantic disobedience, no less than of the ruin to 
which that disobedience conducted him ; and we 
must also^xiiscover some better and more relevant 
method' of vindicating God's justice and mercy in 
jfl^h a transaction, than that appeal which the fol- 
^lowers of Calvin have made to His absolute and 
unbounded sovereignty. And such a vindication 
may, I trust, be obtained by a due attention to the 
following particulars. 

First, it is not asserted in the present text, or in 
any other part of Scripture, that God created Pha- 
raoh or brought him first into the world as a vessel 
of wrath fitted for destruction. God does not say, 
" for this cause have I predestined thee to be born 
into the world, that thou mightest rebel against me, 
and by that rebellion purchase to thyself everlasting 
punishment to the praise of my justice." This He 
does not say. He only assures him, that " for this 
cause He had raised him up," according to our trans- 
lation; but according to the most approved ancient 
versions, " preserved, continued, or spared him." 
That is, that either He had first made him king, and 
seated him on the throne of Memphis, or had en- 
- dured him there, in spite of his crimes, as a proper 
person upon whom, in that elevated situation, might 
be displayed the judgments which God is accus- 
tomed to inflict on the oppressive and impenitent. 



"^ 158 SERMON VII. 

We are not authorized to suppose that the un- 
bridled passions and frantic obstinacy which made 
Pharaoh a fit subject for this awful and exemplary 
chastisement, were, from the first and in the early 
part of his life, invincible and involuntary. We are 
not even to suppose that the peculiar situation of 
fife into which he was thrown had a necessary 
tendency to render him obstinate and furious. 
God forbid ! God Himself hath told us that He 
tempteth no man, and that He hath no pleasure in 
the death of him who perisheth for his sins. The 
wickedness of Pharaoh was his own ; but, being 
already impious and cruel, having already offended 
to a sufficient degree against the light of natural 
religion, having already, to a sufficient degree, re- 
sisted and grieved that good Spirit whose gracious 
helps and comforts are, for Christ's sake, offered 
to all, he was placed or continued by Divine Provi- 
dence in a rank of which he was unworthy, both 
as a means of punishment lo the sinful nation under 
his sway, and that he himself, by the greatness of 
his fall, might afford to other men a more effectual 
warning. In his anger God gave a king to Egypt, 
in His wrath He took him away, and Pharaoh was 
raised up on high, 

•■' ut lapsu graviore ruat! " * 

But, secondly, we have no reason to conclude from 
Scripture that the consequence of his obstinacy in 

* Claiulinn : in Rnf. iii. 2H 



GOD'S DEALINGS WITH PHARAOH. 159 

the present instance was any other than a temporal 
punishment, nor that even this punishment was 
made heavier, though it was certainly made more 
conspicuous, than that which his former sins had 
demanded. " There are," says Jeremy Taylor, 
" There are many secret and undeserved mercies," 
— " of which men can give no account till they come 
to give God thanks at their publication, and of this 
sort is that mercy which God reserves for the souls 
of many millions of men and women concerning 
whom we have no hopes, if we account concerning 
them by the usual proportions of revelations and 
Christian commandments, and yet we are taught 
to hope some strange good things concerning them 
by the analogy and general rules of the Divine 
mercy." " He that usually imposes less, and is loth 
to inflict any, and very often forgives it all, is 
hugely distant from exacting an eternal punishment 
when the most that He threatened and gave notice 
of was but a temporal. The effect of this consi- 
deration I would have to be this, that we may 
publicly worship this mercy of God which is kept 
in secret, and that we be not too forward in sen- 
tencing all heathens and prevaricating Jews to 
the eternal pains of hell, but to hope that they 
have a portion in the secrets of the Divine mercy, 
where also, unless many of us have some little por- 
tions deposited, our condition will be very uncer- 
tain and sometimes most miserable." 

But be this as it may, there is no reason to be- 
lieve that Pharaoh was the more severely punished. 



160 SERMON VII. 

either in this world or the world to come, lor what 
he did under judicial hardness. The ruin which 
he met with was what his previous crimes had 
called for. The sufferings which befell his subjects, 
their own sins had justly merited ; and all which 
God describes Himself as doing was to suspend 
awhile the appointed vengeance ; to endure some 
little space the vessel of wrath fitted for destruction, 
that the blow when it came might be more exem- 
plary to others, and might be more certainly ascer 
tained as the infliction of Almighty displeasure. 

Nor is this all, for thirdly, the hardening of the 
heart, (which is a very common expression in Scrip- 
ture) to those who recollect the opinion of the 
ancient Hebrews as to the seat of the reasoning 
faculties, is familiarly known to signify, not only 
an increase of obstinacy and impious resolution to 
resist the power of God, and the dictates of religion 
and mercy, but a confusion, moreover, of the natu- 
ral understanding ; a blindness to our visible in- 
terest, a mad contempt of consequences, and that 
perverse and furious folly, which, like the hunted 
boar, presses with the greater violence on the spear 
that pierces him. 

It was not the wickedness of Pharaoh alone 
which could have prevented his perceiving, as his 
counsellors are expressly said to have perceived, 
that " Egypt was destroyed"* by his repeated pre- 
varication with Moses. His natural reason, had he 

'* Exodus X.7. 



liOD'S DEALINGS WITH PHARAOH. 16 i 

retained the use of it, must have sufficiently in- 
structed him in the prudence of yielding in time, 
nor can we ascribe his perseverance to any other 
cause than that which the heathen themselves have 
recognised as a part of the ordinary system of pro- 
vidence, that '- quos vult perdere prius dementat," 
that God makes those men mad whom He designs 
to bring to ruin. 

There is, it should be recollected, and in the 
nature of things there must be, a period, how late 
soever, when the patience of the Almighty is at an 
end, and that grace is withdrawn which, had they 
made a timely use of it, would have opened the 
gates of mercy to the worst and most grievous 
offenders. But when the day of grace is over, it 
is of little consequence to the criminal, though to 
those who are to profit by his example it may be a 
matter of the greatest importance, and of exceed- 
ing wisdom and mercy, by what process of judicial 
infatuation or of providential circumstances the 
criminal is restrained from escaping the determined 
ruin. '• The king of Egypt," the righteous God 
might say, '• hath long and grievously offended 
me. Like others, he had once his day of grace, in 
which my Spirit was not withheld, and in which he 
might have found the gates of repentance and ac- 
ceptance open. But my Spirit shall not always 
strive with man; and that I have endured this 
wicked man so lono^ is not in tenderness to him. 
but as a part of his punishment, and that his pu- 
nishment might be more public and terrible. To 

VOL. T. Y 



162 SERMON VII. 

this end I have raised him up to a throne of which 
he is unworthy ; to this end I have deprived him 
not only of the grace which he despised, but of 
that natural reason which even on worldly grounds, 
might have taught him to avoid the destined pu- 
nishment. Let others learn from him that not only 
holiness but wisdom is mine to give or to withhold; 
and that he who seeks not after the one, may be 
made in the end to mourn the deprivation of the 
other. Thus have I hardened his heart by confus- 
ing his understanding; by withdrawing the only 
check which remained on his furious and unruly 
passions ; and by leaving him to the consequences 
of those counsels which he originally preferred to 
the light of natural religion and the whispers of 
natural mercy." 

From the case of Pharaoh, however, thus stated 
and explained, some very important practical co- 
rollaries may be derived for the instruction of be- 
lievers. 

We may learn, in the first place, from this me- 
morable history, of how little positive advantage 
are those objects which the world most covets, 
such as wealth, and length of days, and elevated 
station, when we behold them, in the present in- 
stance, assigned to a wicked person in no strain of 
benediction, in no feeling of indulgence, but as 
tokens of anger and a part of his intended punish- 
ment. It was a knowledge of this truth which 
prevented David from murmuring at the prosperity 
of the ungodly, seeing, that by lifting them up 



GOD'S DEALINGS WITH PHARAOH. 163 

above the sons of men, the Ahnighty did, in fact, 
nothing else than set them in shppery places ; that 
their rank and power served only to render them 
more conspicuously miserable, and was the scaf- 
fold on which they mounted that the world might 
behold their execution. So certain is it that the 
gifts of the Almighty are good or evil according 
to the persons on whom they are bestowed ; and 
so carefully ought we to govern our lives, lest 
" our tables be made a snare to us, and that which 
should have been to om* welfare, become a trap."^ 
It is, secondly, a very awful consideration which 
arises from the present and many similar passages 
of Scripture, that men, while they yet live, may 
have so far exceeded the patience and long-suffer- 
ing of God, as that His Spirit continues to strive 
with them no more, but that they are abandoned 
to their impenitent hearts, and, even in this world, 
are already sentenced. Such, as we have seen, 
appears to have been the case with Pharaoh ; such, 
we certainly know, was the condition of those Jews 
over whom our Saviour lamented that "the things 
which belonged to their peace were thenceforth 
hidden from their eyes,"' and of whom Isaiah had 
formerly testified, that '- the Lord would make 
their hearts gross, and their ears dull of hearing ;'- 
such those were for whom, inasmuch as they had 
sinned the " sin unto death," St. John forbids us to 
pray; such those of whom St. Paul declavp^^^ that 

"^^ Psalm Ixix. 22. 



164 SERMON VII. 

it is impossible to quicken them unto repentance ; 
and that no more remaineth unto them " but a 
certain fearful looking for of judgment" to come, 
and the expectation of those torments of which the 
fears are but the sad beginning.* 

This is a dreadful picture. But those, if any 
such hear me, who have attended the sick or the 
dying; who have endeavoured to quicken to repent- 
ance men dead in trespasses and sins ; will but too 
surely bear me witness that the case which it re- 
presents is not exaggerated or uncommon. There 
are those who, having long neglected prayer, are 
at length, even when roused to a sense of their 
danger, unable so to compose their thoughts as, in 
an orderly and acceptable manner, to ask mercy 
from their offended Creator. There are those who 
appear to have lost even the perception of right and 
wrong ; men so long accustomed to evil that the 
very thoughts of Heaven are more painful to them 
that those of hell ! How often do we meet with 
aged men who, tottering on the brink of the 
grave, pursue the sinful follies of youth, not for 
any pleasure they derive from them, but to shut 
out, by their means, the more dismal thoughts of 
futurity ! how often those who tremble at the 
wrath to come, without resolution to attempt an 
escape from it, and by whom the calls of rehgion 
are answered in no other light than as coming to 
torment them before the time I 

' St. Luke xix. 42. St. Mat. xiii. 15. 1 St. .lohn v. 16. Heb. x. 27 



GOD'S DEALINGS WITH PHARAOH. 165 

And these had once their day of grace ! these 
once experienced the blessed visits of God's Spirit ! 
these once heard the voice of their Father most 
lovingly calling them to repentance ! Yea, for these 
Christ died, and for these, had not themselves re- 
jected the privilege, the gates of Heaven would 
have rolled back on their starry hinges, and there 
would have been joy for their reception among the 
angels of God Most High ! 

Oh, my brethren, while yet you feel within you 
a wholesome remorse for sin, a desire to escape from 
its snares, and those other gracious tokens of God's 
presence in the heart by which we are moved and 
enabled to amendment, delay not for a moment to 
profit by that acceptable time, and to make, while 
it is called to-day, the day of salvation your own. 
They are grievously deceived who fancy that, be- 
cause they are now able to repent, they may re- 
pent when they please. The ability, it should 
never be forgotten, the ability comes from God 
alone ; and the same God whose spirit now strives 
in our hearts to overcome our evil nature, has so- 
lemnly threatened that His " Spirit shall not always 
strive with men !"^ 

Lastly, let us admire the wisdom and power of 
the Most High, who can make even such men as I 
have described the instruments of His exalted plea- 
sure ; the means of declaring His name through 
the earth, and His ministers for good to those whom 

*Gen.vJ. 3. 



166 SEjRMON VIL 

He sees fit to favour. Not only was the obstinacy 
of Pharaoh turned into a means of perfecting more 
entirely the deliverance of the oppressed nation of 
Israel ; to the Egyptians themselves their suffer- 
ings were, eventually, most beneficial, inasmuch as 
their land was freed thenceforth from a race whose 
power, and number, and different origin had long 
made their presence obnoxious and dangerous; 
and since, thenceforth, for above six hundred years, 
the neighbour nations of Egypt and Israel, as if 
mutually awed by the judgments which had sepa- 
rated them, remained (a sohtary instance in the 
history of the world) in unbroken peace with each 
other. 

But this is not all ! The exemplary punishment 
to the wicked is a blessing to all those who receive 
the solemn warning which it conveys. Where the 
history of Pharaoh is known, his name is a lesson 
to men how they disobey the will and sUght the 
judgments of their Maker ; and we know not how 
many millions, from the north and south, and east 
and west, have been snatched from the wrath to 
come by the merited sufferings of this one unhappy 
tvrant ! 



SERMON Vlli. 



ON THE DECREES OF GOD, 
[Preached in the Cathedral of St. Asaph, 1819.] 



St. Luke xix. 43. 

If thou hadst known, even tlwu, at least in this thy day, the 
things which belong unto thy peace ! But now they are hid 
from thine eyes ! 

These are the affecting words of our Saviour on His 
last visit to Jerusalem, when, attended by the mighty 
multitude of those Gahleans who had seen His mi- 
racles, He entered as the Son of David and the 
King foretold by the prophet Zechariah into that 
city and temple of His earthly and His Heavenly 
Father, which were shortly after destined to flow 
with His blood, and to be given up, in consequence, 
to the vengeance of God, and to be a curse to all 
posterity. As thus attended He came down the 
steep descent of the Mount of OHves, which over- 
looks Jerusalem, " He beheld the city, and wept 
over it, saying, if thou hadst known, even thou, at 
least in this thy day, the things which belong unto 
thy peace ! but now they are hid from thine eyes ! 
For the days shall come upon thee that thine ene- 
mies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass 
thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and 



168 ^EkMQN Vllf. 

shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy chil- 
dren within thee ; and they shall not leave in thee 
one stone upon another, because thou knewest not 
the time of thy visitation." 

This was not the only instance in which our 
Lord uttered the like complaint of the disobedience 
of His people, and the like prophecy of their ap- 
proaching calamities. Within a few days after, in 
the temple. He foretold that of all those goodly 
buildings not one stone should be left on another ; 
and He exclaimed, with the same affectionate ear- 
nestness and compassion, " O Jerusalem, Jerusa- 
lem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest 
them which are sent unto thee, how often would 
I have gathered thy children together, even as a 
hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and 
ye would not ! Behold your house is left unto you 
desolate." * 

How truly these prophecies were fulfilled the 
writings of the heathen and of the Jews themselves 
instruct us. Within forty years after the cruci- 
fixion of our Lord, the Romans came against the 
city at the time of the passover, when the great mul- 
titude of the nation were gathered from all parts 
within its walls. They literally " cast a trench 
around it, and kept it in on every side," suflTering 
no man to go in or out ; insomuch that, for the 
famine which arose, the bodies of the slain were cut 
up and devoured, and women ate their own chil- 

■ St. Muith. Axiii. :i7. :^«. 



THE DECREES OF GOD. 169 

dreu. They " laid the city even with the ground,'' 
and even ploughed up the foundations of the tem- 
ple ; and destroyed the wretched inhabitants with 
so great a slaughter, that three milHons of meUc 
women, and children in the to^vn and the neigh- 
bouring country are said, by the Jews themselves, 
to have perished either by famine or the sword. 

Now at the time that this prophecy was delivered, 
it is hardly too much to say that there was no more 
appearance or likelihood of the event occurring, 
than if the same dismal calamities were now fore- 
told of London. The whole world was at peace. 
Jerusalem was quietly under the government of the 
Romans who could, therefore, have no interest in 
destroying it; and so little disposition did the Jews, 
at this time, shew to rebel against them, that they 
absolutely were, in all appearance, mainly led to 
the crucifixion of our Lord by the fear lest the Ro- 
mans should take offence at His success with the 
people. If Christ, then, foreknew and foretold this 
destruction, He foreknew and foretold that which 
He could have derived from no human wisdom, and 
must, therefore, have been a prophet of God. 

Nor can it be pretended that, after the last great 
ruin of Jerusalem had really taken place, this pro- 
phecy was falsely ascribed to our Lord by His apos- 
tles BJxd evangelists. In the first place, let any of 
you consider how difficult it would have been, while 
many of those Galileans were still alive who had 
heard our Saviour's preaching, to make men beheve 
that, at so solemn and public a time, and in the case 

VOL. I. Z 



170 SERMON Vlll. 

of a prophecy so remarkable, our Lord had used 
words which they who heard Him as well as the 
apostles, did not remember. Suppose that some 
great and famous preacher from a distant country 
were to perform in the streets of London even a 
tenth part of the wonders which our Lord performed 
in Jerusalem. Supposing the eyes of all men to 
have been drawn to him on some one solemn oc- 
casion, on which he entered into the city at the 
head of his disciples, and preached to them an 
aifecting sermon on his own fate and on their du- 
ties ; would it be safe for any person, in writing the 
life of such a man twenty or thirty years afterwards, 
to say that he had, on that particular occasion, 
publicly foretold the destruction of the town, when 
in truth, he had said nothing like ? Would not all 
those who had been present exclaim " we remem- 
ber that discourse as well as you can, and we are 
sure that the prophet never used the expressions 
which you impute to him." How then could St. 
Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John venture 
to do that which no man in his senses would, in 
this country, venture on ? 

But, further, it may be asked, " How, if our Lord 
did not really deliver this prophecy, how did His 
evangelists know that Jerusalem was shortly to be 
laid in ashes ?" That of those evangelists the first 
three, at least, if not all four, must have written their 
gospclsbefore Jerusalem was destroyed,is certain not 
only from abundant internal evidence which proves 
tJiat these works were written while Jerusalem was 



THE DECREES OF GOD. 171 

yet standing ; but from the fact in which all ancient 
writers agree, that St. Matthew, St. Luke, and St. 
Mark were themselves dead before those calamities 
came to pass. Either, then, they must have taken 
their knowledge of that future destruction from the 
preaching of their Master, or they must have had 
the gift of prophecy themselves. But if they were, 
themselves, the prophets of the Most High, we can- 
not apprehend that they would have told a false- 
hood in imputing to their Master words which He 
never uttered. It follows then, so certainly as to 
leave no cause of doubt with any reflecting mind, 
that Jesus of Nazareth really uttered the words 
which are here given to him ; that He must, there- 
fore, have been inspired by God, and (since God 
would never inspire a man with miraculous know- 
ledge in order to establish a lie) that we may be 
sure He was, as He professed Himself, the Son of 
God, the Saviour of Israel and of the world. 

From the fact, then, of these words having been 
uttered by our Lord, and having received after His 
death their exact accomphshment, we may draw a 
greater certainty of faith in Him and confirm our 
obligation to obey Him and keep His command- 
ments. 

But, from the words themselves, as they have 
been read to you in my text, some very important 
consequences follow, which it shall be the object 
of my present discourse to explain to your under- 
standings, and apply to your consciences, inasmuch 
as they greatly illustrate the manner of God's ordi- 



172 SERMON VIII. 

nary dealings with sinners, and afford an awful 
warning to us all not to slight the opportunities of 
repentance. " If thou hadst known," said Christ to 
His guilty city, " if thou hadst known, even thou, 
at least in this thy day, the things which belong 
unto thy peaae ! But now they are hid from thine 
eyes ! For the days shall come upon thee, that 
thine enemies shall lay thee even with the ground, 
and thy children within thee, because thou knewest 
not the time of thy visitation !" 

From these affecting words the following facts 
may, I think, be pretty clearly learned. First, that 
there had been a time in which those citizens of 
Jerusalem,whose hearts were now hardened against 
Christ, and whose hands were shortly after dipped 
in His blood, there had been a time during which 
they might, if they pleased, have believed on Him 
to their own salvation and the security of their 
country. Secondly, that this time was now passed 
away, and that it was no longer in their power to per- 
ceive the truth and to flee from the wrath to come. 
And, thirdly, that the blindness of heart which now 
possessed them, and which was so soon to hurry 
them into the commission of the most dreadful 
crime which the world ever witnessed, was, in it- 
self, a fearful instance of God's anger against them* 
and a sure forerunner of the destruction to which 
they were already sentenced. 

The first of these positions is established by 
those words of our Lord. " If thou hadst known," 
or as the original might be rendered, " Oh that 



THE DECREES OF GOD. 173 

thou hadst known the things which belong to thy 
peace !" He does not say " Oh that it had been 
at any time possible for thee to have known them !" 
But, "Oh that thou hadst but known them, that thou 
hadst but set thy heart to learn them, that thou 
hadst only paid that reasonable and honest atten- 
tion to them which they claimed from thee !" This 
would not have been said of those who had been, 
by a decree of God from all eternity, given over to 
inevitable hatred of the light, and to a total want 
of power to receive its beams. We should not say 
to a man blind from his birth " Oh that you had 
seen the sun rise this morning !" but, " Oh that you 
could have seen it !" The turn of the expression 
is only proper when appHed to a person who lay 
under no natural want of power to do the thing 
spoken of; and we, therefore, conclude that the Jews 
might, if they had so pleased, have known the 
things which belonged unto their peace and have 
acted accordingly. And this is yet plainer from a 
comparison of the expressions " in this thy day," 
and " noiv they are hid from thine eyes," and 
" because thou knewest not the time of thy visi- 
tation." 

For if a decree of God had passed from the be- 
ginning that certain only, a few in comparison of 
the Jews, should, by irresistible grace, have their 
hearts turned to believe on their promised Saviour, 
while all the rest should be passed by, and left in 
a total incapacity to accept the salvation which was 
offered to them, it is plain that these last could 



174 SERMON VIII. 

not have been properly said to have any day of 
salvation at all, and that it would have been the 
greatest injustice imaginable to give as a reason for 
the severities which were to be exercised on them 
that " they knew not the time of visitation," when 
it was never possible for them to know it. Nor 
is it easy to discover why our Lord should say of 
the Jews that " woz^," when He thus spake, " the 
things which belonged to their peace were hidden 
from their eyes," unless the time had been wherein 
those things were not hidden from them. When 
I say it is now too late to attempt any thing, I 
certainly give my hearers to understand that the 
thing might once have been possible, since other- 
wise, whether now or then^ the case would have 
been the same, and there would be no propriety in 
expressing any distinction. We may conclude, ac- 
cordingly, that even to those Jews who, when Christ 
spake this, were sentenced to destruction, there had 
been aiforded a sufficient opportunity wherein they 
might, except through their own fault, have entered 
into the Kingdom of God, and have become the 
heirs of life everlasting. 

And since we have no reason to suppose that 
God's dealing with that generation of vipers was 
at variance or inconsistent with the general course 
of His spiritual work on the souls of men, I con- 
clude that every sinner has some acceptable time, 
in which the ^mercy of God is, not in name only 
nor in mockery, but ^effectually offered to him, in 
which his day of visitation, the things which belong 



THE DECREES OF GOD. 175 

to his peace are not hidden from his eyes; and in 
which he might, unless through his own single and 
wilful obstinacy, discern and follow the path of sal- 
vation. 

Let no man mistake my meaning ! I do not say 
that the time can be found in which the sinner, by 
his own natural strength and unassisted faculties, 
can either obtain or follow after salvation. I know 
that we are by nature incapable of any good thing ; 
that the old man is, in his very constitution, in con- 
tinual enmity against God ; and that either to will 
or to do what God requires altogether surpasses our 
powers, unless both the preventing and assisting 
grace of God's Spirit descend on the soul both to 
give us, in the first instance, " a good will," and to 
"work with" and support our endeavours after 
salvation when we have that will. But this I main- 
tain, and I maintain it, as on many other passages 
of Scripture, so particularly on the grounds of the 
present text, first, that some such time or times of 
gracious visitation is accorded by God to all His 
creatures, wherein He gives them the power and 
opportunity of forsaking the bondage of sin for the 
glorious liberty of His children ; and further (which 
follows from the universality of the gift, and from 
the particular instance of the Jews here mentioned 
by our Saviour) that this gift may be resisted and 
rendered vain, and has been thus frustrated and re- 
sisted by the personal fault and wilful hardiness or 
neghgence of all those who, like these Jews, are 
finally suffered to perish. And it follows that the 



It6 SERMON VIIL 

Calvinists are mistaken in maintaining either the 
absolute election of a few, to the passing over or 
reprobation of the greater number of mankind, or 
that the saving grace of God, wherever given, is 
always irresistibly exerted to the conversion and 
final salvation of those whom it once condescends 
to visit. 

But that the power of repentance and faith thus 
given to all is altogether unconnected with our own 
strength and faculties ; that it is of God's free-will 
to give or to withhold ; and that when this is with- 
held, no outward opportunities of knowledge or con- 
viction can profit us any thing, is also certain from 
the same example of the citizens of Jerusalem, from 
whose eyes, after they had once enjoyed for a sufi[i- 
cient time the power of " seeing the things which 
belonged unto their peace," those things were for 
ever hidden. It was not that Christ had, at the 
time when He thus spoke, withdrawn His visible 
presence from them. His miracles were still wrought 
in their streets, His preaching was still heard in the 
courts of their temple. His promises of love and 
blessedness were still held out to all that should 
put their trust in Him ; the fountain of His atoning 
blood was shortly after ofiered, and His body given 
for the sins of the world. 

But from that presence they derived no blessing; 
those miracles, that preaching, those promises, were 
for others^ not for tliem ; the atonement of His sa- 
crifice was to them a savour of death ; their day of 
grace was gone by, and there remained no more for 



THE DECREES OF GOl). 177 

them than a fearful looking for of judgment to 
come, and the gleams of that unquenchable fire to 
which they, every day, were drawing nearer ! 

My brethren, there are those even now, and God 
grant that their number may not be greater than 
many of us imagine ; there are those even now 
whom preaching cannot move, whom friendly coun- 
sel cannot amend, whom example and experience 
have no power to alter, who are beyond the reach of 
other men's prayers, and whose hearts refuse even, 
in their hours of greatest terror, to utter a prayer 
for themselves. Some of these have outlived the 
pleasures of life, yet perish in its sins simply be- 
cause they cannot forsake them; they are not 
altogether insensible to their danger, but they can- 
not stop, though hell gapes wide before them ; Hke 
an ox to the slaughter they pass on, or a beast to 
the snare, the heartless, hopeless, joyless slaves of 
sin, and the heirs of torment unspeakable ! And 
these men had once, like those Jews, their day of 
visitation; these men had once the power given 
them, if they had seized on and improved it to the 
best advantage, of becoming through Christ the 
children of God, and with Him the heirs of everlast- 
ing glory ! What might they then have been ? 
What are they now ? What must they soon be- 
come ? 

Oh ye who yet feel the comfortable whispers of 
God's Spirit in your souls, whose consciences yet 
warn you when you fall into sin, and to whom the 
power is yet allowed, when you have the inchnation, 

VOL, I 2 A 



178 SERMON Vlir. 

to apply your souls to prayer and the study of the 
Scriptures, deal not, I beseech you, with the Holy 
Ghost as Felix dealt with Paul, saying, " Go thy 
ways now, when I have a more convenient season 
I will send for thee."* The Spirit of God will not 
always strive with men ; He will not come exactly 
when we call him, when we have often already sent 
Him away ; and if ye neglect the opportunities of 
effectual salvation which are now presented, the 
time may soon come in which " ye shall desire to 
see one of these days of the Son of Man, and shall 
not see it."t Improve, then, to the utmost of your 
ability, the grace already vouchsafed to you ; it is 
not your own ; it may be withdrawn at any time ; 
and it will be taken away from that unprofitable 
servant who hides in a napkin the bounty of his 
Heavenly Master. 

Nor, if an additional motive could be required to 
the timely availing ourselves of God's spiritual aid, 
can a stronger be conceived than that which is the 
last conclusion which follows from the words of my 
text, namely, that the deadness and blindness to all 
spiritual impressions of which I am speaking, is ge- 
nerally the forerunner of some signal vengeance of 
God, and almost always great in proportion to the 
degree of spiritual advantages which the sufferer 
has formerly enjoyed and neglected. The blind- 
ness which happened to Israel, the grossness of 
their honrts. and the dullness of their ears were 

■"■ Acts xxiv. 2ry. t St. Luke xvii. 22. 



THE DECREES OF GOD. 179 

such as to us appear almost beyond belief. And 
were not their spiritual advantages, the works which 
were done among them, the warnings given them, 
the revelations communicated to them, at one time 
altogether as remarkable ? And what nation hath 
the earth ever seen whose destruction was so signal 
and attended with so much misery as theirs ? 

Oh may we so shun their obstinacy as that we 
may not be given over to their blindness, but that 
we may know, in this our day, the things which 
belong unto our peace before they are hid from our 
eyes, before the evil days come and the years in 
which we shall say we have no pleasure in them,* 
and before that dreadflil day in which we may cry 
to the God of mercy in vain for pardon and suc- 
cour, when the sleep of death and the senseless 
doze of unbehef and Ucentiousness shall be rent in 
pieces, once for all, by the voice of the archangel 
and the trumpet of God's judgment ! 

*Eccles xii, 1. 



SERMON IX. 



THE EXTENSION OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 

[For the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Preached 
at Shrewsbury, 1821.] 



Daniel xii. 3. 
And they that he wise shall shine as the brightness of thefirma- 
7nent, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars 
for ever and ever. 

These words are found in one of the most striking- 
prophecies on record of the time and manner of 
the Messiah's coming ; and they should seem to 
point out to us very clearly the two-fold duty which 
that advent laid on mankind, namely, that of pro- 
fiting in their own persons by the religious know- 
ledge thus laid within their reach, and that of com- 
municating to others, less favourably circumstanced, 
the hght in which all are equally interested. " They," 
said the angel to the prophet, " that be wise," that 
is, who are in their own persons wise unto salva- 
tion, " shall shine " in the last day " as the bright- 
ness of the firmament," and they who make others 
wise in the same manner, who " turn many to right- 
eousness," and to a saving and purifying know- 
ledge of the Most High, shall shine forth as " the 
Ptars for ever and ever." 



THE EXTENSION OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 181 

The first of these duties, that of labouring in 
our own persons to acquire the true wisdom of 
which the prophet is speaking, is a duty of such 
obvious necessity in itself, and so strongly enforced 
in many passages of Scripture, that, with a Chris- 
tian audience, few arguments are required to de- 
monstrate its absolute necessity. We cannot come 
to Christ without believing in His name. We can- 
not believe on Him without knowing Him. We 
cannot know Him as He is, and as He should be 
known, without appreciating highly the dignity of 
His nature, the wisdom of His laws, and all which 
He has done and suffered for us. And, though an 
outward confession of these illustrious truths is by 
no means inconsistent with much general inatten- 
tion to the doctrines and duties of rehgion, yet they 
are greatly mistaken who expect to be able either 
to know God satisfactorily, or to believe in Him 
sincerely, or, truly and heartily and practically, to 
love Him with that degree of affection which He 
demands from us, without a diligent and frequent 
study of His works and His attributes as described 
in the sacred volume ; without a frequent approach 
to Him and converse with Him through the chan- 
nels of prayer and meditation ; and without a dili- 
gent use of those appointed means of grace which 
chiefly have power to kindle in the heart those 
affections to which, and to which only, the God of 
love and wisdom is accustomed to reveal Himself 
as a Creator, a Redeemer, and a Sanctifier. " He 
that hath my commandments and keepeth them. 



182 SERMON IX. 

he it is that loveth me ; and he that loveth me shall 
be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and 
will manifest myself unto him."* 

It is apparent, then, that for the adequate dis- 
charge of the first-mentioned duty, some greater 
pains are necessary than are comprised in an ac- 
quisition of the first rudiments of Christian know- 
ledge, and that both diligence and devotion are 
required if we would really be found among that 
number to whom the praise of true knowledge be- 
longs, or whose wisdom, in the great day of the 
Messiah, is to shine forth in the brightness of the 
firmament. Nor is the caution superfluous even 
to the wisest and best informed of those who have 
assembled on the present occasion with the bene- 
volent design of enlightening the darkness of their 
fellow-creatures, that it behoves them, while they 
care for others, to bestow some thought on them- 
selves ; to recollect that, if they neglect the care 
of their own souls, the attention which they pay to 
the souls of others can do nothing else than make 
their folly or hypocrisy the more conspicuous, and 
that it is in vain to unfold the Bible to their bre- 
thren while it remains in their own closets a sealed 
and neglected volume. 

But enough has been said (and as much as the 
immediate occasion of my addressing you will ad- 
mit of) on this evident and primary duty. It re- 
mains that I should examine into the extent and 

*St.Johnxiv. 21. 



THE EXTENSION OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 183 

obligations of that second and less obvious branch 
of the Christian character, for the display of which 
so briUiant a reward is promised in the latter part 
of the verse which has been read to you. If of 
them who are, themselves, wise unto salvation it 
is foretold, that they shall " shine as the brightness 
of the firmament," to them who apply that wisdom 
to the advantage of their fellow-creatures a more 
illustrious blessedness is assigned, their glory is to 
be that of those heavenly bodies to which the fir- 
mament owes its lustre, " and they that turn many 
to righteousness" are to be " as the stars for ever 
and ever." 

The duty of assisting to the best of our power, 
and in conformity to the station where God has 
placed us, in the dispersion of ignorance, in the 
propagation of truth, and the extension of the 
knowledge and power of that glorious Gospel, 
which was the latest legacy of the Messiah to all the 
nations of the world ; this duty I have called a less 
obvious branch of the Christian character, because 
it has been too customary among Christians to re- 
gard it as the appropriate duty of a particular body 
of men, the inheritors of a distinct office and com- 
mission, and on whose labours no unauthorized per- 
son could intrude without usurpation, while the 
burden was laid on them alone to " go into all the 
world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.*" 
And, so far as the public ministry of the Gospel ex- 

'^ St. Mark, xvi. 15. 



184 SERMON IX. 

tends this distinction is undoubtedly founded in rea- 
son and Scripture. To preach, in ordinary cases, the 
private Christian can pretend no more authority 
than for administering the Sacraments ; and both 
the one and the other are the appropriate functions 
of those men only and their successors, on whom 
this burden was laid and to whom this authority ^ 
was given when the Lord, after His resurrection^ 
led forth His Apostles as far as Bethany, and when, 
breathing on them, " He said unto them, " receive 
ye the Holy Ghost ;" " as my Father hath sent me, 
even so send I you." 

But that would be a very confined and inade- 
quate notion indeed of the duty to which I refer, 
which should apprehend it to be exclusively and 
sufficiently fulfilled by the mere work (however di- 
Hgently performed) of oral preaching and adminis- 
tration of Baptism and the Eucharist, or which 
should keep out of sight the innumerable and most 
efficacious instruments of prayer, of example, of 
authority, of private remonstrance, of public edu- 
cation, of succours affi)rded to the temporal wants 
of the preachers, and their poorer disciples, and of 
the many other ways of helping in the Lord's great 
battle, which are strictly within the province of 
those who themselves may not preach the Gospel, 
and without which the labours of the most indefa- 
tigable preacher would avail but little to the exten- 
sion and furtherance of God's kingdom. And when 

"Si. John, XX. 22.21. 



THE EXTENSION OF CHRISrS KINGDOM. 185 

we consider how distant are those lands which yet 
remain to be brought from the wildness of pagan 
error to the pale of the Christian ; how vast is 
that multitude which, even w^hile nominally within 
that pale, is still in the shadow of death, and 
in need of being enlightened and evangeUzed; 
when we consider how narrow, in comparison with 
the numbers which seek admission, are the build- 
ings appropriated to our labours, and how seldom 
it is in the course of the year that, amid the cares 
and concerns of the world, those labours can pro- 
cure an audience ; we are compelled, by every mo- 
tive of duty to ourselves as well as of charity to 
our brethren, to charge those who have already 
attained to that good hght, to give diligence lest 
others be deprived of the means of access to it, and 
to invite them, by a wise and bountiful exertion of 
the talents allotted them, to help us in bringing 
home to the tents of the Indian and the cottages of 
the poor, that knowledge of Christ which is the 
great power of God unto salvation ; and to hold 
up, like Aaron and Hur, the overwearied hands of 
Moses, lest through their neglect the people of the 
Lord be discomfited before their spiritual enemies. 
This, then, is the task to which we call you ; 
this the task in which we pray you to be fellow- 
labourers with ourselves ; a task no less plainly en- 
joined inScripture,than it is obviously deducible from 
the dictates of our strongest natm'al wants and our 
most amiable natural feelings. If we are forbidden 
to see our neighbour suffer hunger, disease, or 

VOL. I. 2 B 



186 SERMON IX. 

nakedness, without, to the best of our power, en- 
deavouring to reheve his sufferings ; if it be a crime 
to suffer our enemy's beast of burthen to fall be- 
neath its load without rendering it our assistance ; 
of what punishment must he be worthy who looks 
on with dry eyes and without an effort to abate 
the evil, on millions stretched out in deadly dark- 
ness of idolatry and superstition ; on millions more 
surrounded with hght, yet, by some strange fatahty, 
continuing to work the works of darkness ; on mil- 
lions as yet incapable of good or evil, whose hap- 
piness or misery, both in this world and the world 
to come, must depend on the sort of education 
which is given them ; and on millions who, having 
begun well, are falling back into the snares of Satan, 
from which a timely and well-directed warning 
might yet have the power of extricating them ? 

Of the various benevolent institutions by which, 
in different ways and by different applications of the 
same Christian and benevolent spirit, this mass of 
moral evil has been already assailed and diminished, 
whether by the maintenance of missionaries in 
foreign lands, or the organization of schools at 
home, or by an increased circulation of that blessed 
volume which is the fountain and the end of 
whatever .we have preached or whatever ye have 
believed, it is unnecessary for me to speak in terms 
of praise, and it would be unchristian and unholy, 
even while pleading for a different society, to say 
any thing in the spirit of rivalry. The Society for 
Promoting Christian Knowledije envies none of 



THE EXTENSION OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 187 

these, but from her earhest institution it has been 
her endeavour to attain the objects of all; and 
while she was the first institution which called the 
attention of Christian Europe to the spiritual state 
of India, on whose soil she only, for more than a 
century, with scanty means but with love una- 
bated, continued and continues to labour; she 
has supphed with a liberal hand the schools 
of Great Britain and Ireland with the necessary 
elementary books of instruction ; and has circu- 
lated during the last year, either gratuitously or 
at very reduced prices, above ninety thousand 
copies of the Bible or the New Testament. These, 
however, are not the only nor the distinguishing 
circumstances in her constitution to which I am 
desirous of calling your notice. Blessed as these 
are, and necessary means of blessedness, yet can 
neither the employment of missionaries abroad, nor 
the education of youth, nor the dissemination of 
the Scriptures at home, be, any of them or alto- 
gether, considered as sufficient to meet the grow- 
ing necessities and growing dangers of the Mes- 
siah's Church and kingdom. It is not enough to 
bear His banner through distant seas, and declare 
in the ends of the earth the glory of our God, when 
our own streets are clogged with vice, and our 
ears assailed at home with the accents of infidelity 
and blasphemy. It is not enough to give our chil- 
dren betimes the necessary, but easily abused power 
of reading and writing, unless we, at the same 
time, render their tender minds familiar with those 



188 SERMON IX. 

works whence they are afterwards to derive in- 
struction and salvation. It is not even enough to 
train up a child to find delight in profitable read- 
ing, unless, for the appetite thus created, we sup- 
ply him in after life with wholesome and sufficient 
aliment. Nor is it enough, lastly, that the Bible 
alone should be offered to his perusal and medita- 
tion, unless, in an age fruitful of error and false 
interpretation, some farther helps are supplied to 
enable him to understand and profit by those Sacred 
Oracles. 

It is, then, as a tract society, as furnishing at 
easy rates and in sufficient variety the most popu- 
lar works of our best EngHsh divines, and, more 
recently, and for the purpose of founding parochial 
libraries, many other popular works well calculated 
not only for the rational instruction, but the ra- 
tional amusement of the lower and middling classes ; 
it is as labouring dihgently and successfully to 
counteract the dark machinations of infidelity and 
disaffection, and as rendering mankind safe from 
such arts by furnishing them with the means of 
appreciating their weakness, that the Society for 
Promoting Christian Knowledge stands without 
a rival. It is thus that she completes her own sys- 
tem of instruction and utility, that she promotes 
the success of her mission by reforming her fellow 
Christians at home, that she makes her schools 
effectual to the end of Christian education by fur- 
nishing books in which Christian principles are 
taught, and that she forwards and secures the 



THE EXTENSION OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 189 

triumphs of her Bibles, by answering the' objections 
of infidehty, by illustrating the abstruser doctrines 
of the Sacred Volume, and by enforcing and per- 
suading, in ten thousand different forms, the pro- 
fession and practice of those principles and duties 
on which there is, fortunately, but little contro- 
versy among believers. 

And thus, too, it is that, while she herself needs 
help from no other reUgious institution, she sup- 
plies the deficiencies and promotes the success of 
all. It is thus that every mission, conducted on 
the principles of genuine Christianity, every school 
where Christianity is not excluded as a part of 
education, and every society which has for its ob- 
ject the dissemination of God's word, derives effi- 
cacy from her labours, and has reason to wish her 
" good luck in the name of the Lord," as an insti- 
tution which renders perfect what they have begun, 
and extends to a greater degree of knowledge, and 
applies to a fuller detail of practice, and informs to 
a more excellent faith, and subdues to a more sys- 
tematic obedience, and ripens, lastly, to a greater 
intensity of holiness here, and everlasting happiness 
hereafter, those outlines of blessedness to which 
only they have attained. 

Nor, in the description which I have given of 
the manner in which the Society for Promoting 
Christian Knowledge contributes to forward and 
complete the benevolent views of all other rehgious 
institutions, can I consent to confine her claims to 



190 SERMON IX. 

patronage ^nd favour exclusively to the members 
of our national establishment. Her practice has 
in no respect been narrow or sectarian. Devoted 
as her members conscientiously are to the doctrine 
and discipline of the EngHsh Church, and to the 
apostolical succession of bishops, priests, and dea- 
cons, she has not hesitated to avail herself of the 
labours of Lutheran missionaries, and in her 
list of pubUcations the names may be found, not 
only of foreign presbyterian divines, but of some 
among the most eminent English dissenters. And 
if any stranger to our Church conceives of us as 
exclusively and intolerantly labouring, not for the 
extension and triumph of Gospel truth, but for the 
advantage of a particular hierarchy, let me implore 
him, without prejudice, to examine some of those 
volumes which excite his jealousy. Let him try 
our doctrines by the test of Scripture; let him 
weigh our prayers in the balance of meditation and 
charity, and, if he does not join our communion, I 
am convinced he will think more favourably of our 
principles and practice, and discover that we too 
are engaged with less clamour, perhaps, and with 
more discretion, but with equal earnestness, and a 
no less glowing love, in the same great cause, 
which, I wiUingly bear him witness, the conscien- 
tious dissenter is endeavouring to forward. 

But to the sincere members of the Church of 
England, to those whom I now behold around me, 
and who regard her, with reason, as one of the 



THE EXTENSION OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 191 

purest systems of Christian government now on 
earth, and one of the most efficient agents of Chris- 
tian instruction which the world has yet witnessed, 
who rejoice in her permanence, and are sensibly 
affected by her dangers ; to them need I say any 
thing in recommendation of a society which has, 
for more than a century, been universally recog- 
nised as her firmest bulwark, and on the continu- 
ance and activity of which, it must, humanly 
speaking, depend whether she is to sink, first, into 
comparative uselessness, and afterwards, into utter 
and unpitied ruin ; or whether she is still to flourish 
in the candlestick where her God hath placed her, 
a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of our 
spiritual Israel ? 

Ye that love these ancient and venerable forms 
of devotion which instruct and improve, while they 
awe and aflfect us, give your aid, that the poor man 
also may read and possess his Common Prayer. Ye 
that honour the sacraments of Christ, help us to 
make known their meaning and necessity to those 
who now shrink back from the Altar in ignorant 
alarm. Ye that fear the sin of schism, or are ap- 
palled by the muttered thunders of infidelity, be 
sure that there is balm in Gilead, if the valuable 
specifics which our society oflfers are brought within 
the reach of the deluded victim of doubt or im- 
piety ; and above all, let it be seen by the course 
of your own fives, that you are really attached to 
the rehgion which you profess, the forms of devotion 



192 SERMON IX. 

which you recommend to others, and that the sys- 
tem of faith and practice which you prescribe to 
your poorer neighbour, is that which is your own 
guide on earth, and your comfort in the hour of 
dissolution. 



SERMON X. 



THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN. 

{Preached for the Church Missionary Society, at Whittington. 
Salop, April 16, 1820.] 



St. Matthew vi. 10. 
Thy kingdom cmne. 

In the Divine prayer from which these words are 
taken, there is a twofold recurrence of the term 
God's kingdom. In the former instance we desire 
of our Father that His kingdom may come, and in 
the latter we acknowledge and recognise the king- 
dom of the Almighty as, together with His glory 
and His power, existing for ever and ever : a cir- 
cumstance which should seem to point out to us 
two distinct and different manifestations of celestial 
authority, the one which is now and has been from 
the beginning of time, the other which is yet future, 
and is advancing to take place among men. 

That the name of kingdom is famiharly and ap- 
propriately apphed to the relationship which God 
bears to all created things as their Maker, Preserver, 
and Governor, is plain not only from the natural 
reason of mankind, but from innumerable passages 
of Scripture. Even the heathen had m far a per- 



194 SERMON X. 

ception of this propriety, that they called their Ju- 
piter the king of gods and men ; and to the Lord 
Jehovah the prophet David, in his address to his 
son Solomon, ascribes the same distinctive title in 
a splendid strain of pathetic eloquence : " Thine, 
O Lord," are his words, " is the greatness, and the 
power, and the glory, and the victory, and the ma- 
jesty : for all that is in the heaven and in the earth 
is thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and 
Thou art exalted as head above all !" * The esta- 
bhshment of this kingdom, however, being the sub- 
ject of our praises, not of our prayers, has no place 
among the petitions which our Lord has taught us 
to offer up, but is reserved with more propriety to 
the glorification or doxology by which those peti- 
tions are concluded. 

But out of this universal empire over nature 
there was to arise, in process of time, an especial 
kingdom over the moral world, to which all the pro- 
phets of elder times bore witness, and which is de- 
scribed by the evangelists, as it was already fami- 
liarly spoken of by the Jews, as the kingdom of 
Heaven or of God. The good old Simeon waited 
for this consolation of his people when it was fore- 
told to him that he should not depart before he 
had seen the Christ, or anointed Prince of Israel. 
It was the argument by which the Baptist moved 
his hearers to repentance that tlic kingdom of Hea- 
ven wai^ fast approaching, and our blessed Lord 

1 Cliroii. \\i\. 1 J. 



THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN. 195 

Himself, on His first appearance in Galilee, came 
preaching, as we are told, the good tidings of His 
Father's kingdom. 

We cannot, therefore, be at a loss to determine 
that by this kingdom is meant the world under the 
Gospel dispensation. The person who rules over 
it is our Saviour, the Son and the Anointed of the 
Most High. Its laws and statutes are the Gospel 
which He has given, and its subjects are those who 
believe in and are called by His name. The begin- 
ning of this empire is to be dated from the time at 
which Jesus ascended into Heaven, and sate on the 
right hand of God, all power and rule over the 
Church being then committed to Him. The exer- 
cise of that power shall remain in the hands of the 
Messiah till all His enemies shall be put under His 
feet, and death itself shall be destroyed by Him. 
" Then cometh the end,"'^ when the Son shall deli- 
ver up again His mediatorial kingdom to Him from 
whom He received it, when, having put all things 
under His feet. He shall Himself be subject unto 
the Father; and God, in His threefold Unity, shall 
be thenceforward all in all. 

The plain and natural meaning, then, of entreat- 
ing our Heavenly Father that His kingdom may 
come, is that, by His grace, the rehgion of His Son 
may be extended, supported, and established. It 
is the endeavouring to aid by our prayers that great 
and good work in which the Apostles laboured, and 

* 1 Cor. XV. 24. 



196 SERMON X. 

in which the best and wisest of mankind have, in 
imitation of the Apostles, esteemed it a glory and 
happiness to endure hardship, contempt, and mar-' 
tyrdom; that work which was the subject of the 
latest charge given by the Lord Jesus to His fol- 
lowers, " Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, 
baptising them in the name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to 
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
3^ou.'-* 

It is true that, in its fullest sense, the prayer 
which we offer thus to God embraces far more than 
the outward establishment and profession of His 
faith among the sons of men. It comprises a de- 
vout aspiration for the establishment, or renewal, 
or preservation of Christ's kingdom in our hearts-^ 
as an internal, a ruling, and overmastering princi- 
ple of faith, of feeling, and deportment. It com- 
prises a desire to be admitted, in God's good time, 
to the society of that blessed portion of His Church 
which, having been faithful unto death, is already 
rejoicing in Paradise. It implies, above all, a long- 
ing after that triumphant return of our glorified 
Saviour, when, having completed the number of 
His elect. He shall hasten His more perfect king- 
dom, when God shall visibly take unto Himself His 
great power and shall reign, and when we, with all 
those that are departed in the true faith of His 
holy name, may have our perfect consummation 

'^■- St. Matt, xxviii. 19.20 



THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN. 197 

and bliss, both in body and soul, in His eternal and 
everlasting glory ! 

But in its plainest and most immediate sense, in 
that sense in which it must be first fulfilled in our- 
selves before we can hope for a share in these fur- 
ther and greater blessings, in that sense in which it 
must be first made known to all nations before, and 
in order to its full and final accomplishment ; in 
this sense, I say, it can only be understood as a 
desire that the knowledge of Divine truth should 
be extended and confirmed among men, that the 
Gentiles should come to His fight and their kings 
to the brightness of His rising, that the everlast- 
ing Gospel should be preached to every nation until 
the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms 
of our God and his Christ, and " the earth be filled 
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the 
waters cover the sea !"* 

This, then, is the import of the second petition 
in that prayer which we derive from the example 
and authority of our Saviour, and which, with the 
great majority of Christians in every sect and coun- 
try, is a constituent and necessary part of their 
daily and nightly devotions. And, since to petition 
Heaven for any grace which we are not really de- 
sirous of obtaining is, manifestly, either a mockery 
of God in using a form of words without meaning, 
or an hypocritical attempt to deceive Him by coun- 
terfeiting desires which we do not feel ; and since 

* Hab. ii. 14, 



198 SERMON X. 

God, we may be sure, would never have enjoined 
the expression of wants and desires which it was 
not fitting and necessary that we should continu- 
ally feel and act upon, it follows, from the mere 
fact that our Lord has taught us thus to pray, that 
the instruction of the ignorant and the conversion 
of the heathen should be the earnest and daily wish 
of all those by whom His name is named. 

Let me ask you, then, my brethren, and ask you 
as in His presence to whom all hearts are open 
and all desires known, who knoweth our necessi- 
ties before we ask, and our ignorance in asking, 
have you seriously laid to heart the great blessed- 
ness of knowing and believing His Gospel, of being 
admitted to the name and privileges of His children, 
of having your nature washed in His baptism from 
the infection of death and of sin, and your souls 
maintained and nourished by His most precious 
body and blood ? Are you duly sensible of the 
advantage which you possess over the heathen in 
knowing God as He is ,• in being instructed as to 
the service which He requires of you; in being 
encouraged under the miseries of mortality by a 
sure and certain hope of everlasting happiness after 
death; in being comforted under the burthen of 
your natural weakness and surrounding tempta- 
tions by the sacrifice for sin through Christ's blood, ^ 
the assurance of glory through His merits, and the 
help to be obtained through His name from the 
Holy Ghost to enlighten, guide, and comfort you? 

vSnppose that these things, which we have known 



THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN, 199 

irom our childhood, and have, therefore, ceased to 
regard as they ought to be regarded, were at this 
time first made known to us ; suppose we were now 
first told that there is a good, and just, and holy, 
and mercifiil God over all, to whom all His works 
are known, who requires firom us no bloody sacri- 
fice, no shocking, or difficult, or costly service, but 
whose eyes and ears are ever open to the prayer 
of the humble and the penitent ! Suppose we now 
first heard that the sins by which we are each of 
us conscious that we have offended God are par- 
doned, on our true repentance, through the medi- 
ation and sufferings of God's beloved Son, who so 
loved the inhabitants of the world that He came 
down from Heaven to take on Himself their pu- 
nishment ! Suppose we had now first opened to us 
the prospect of another and a better world in which 
we may hope, together with those dear and virtuous 
friends of whom death has robbed us, to dwell in 
the presence of the Lord, the objects of His mercy 
and His favour ! Suppose that when our prospect 
of this reward grew dim, and our heart fainted 
through a sense of our inherent weakness and un- 
worthiness, we were now first lifted up to hope and 
diligence in well doing by the promise of a pure 
and mighty Comforter to enlighten us when we 
were dark, to support us when we were feeble, to 
raise us when we fell, and finally to beat down 
under our feet our fiercest and mightiest enemy ! 
Suppose, I say, these things were told you this day 
for the first time, and ask your own hearts whether 



200 bEKMON X. 

the natural sympathies of humanity would not pro- 
duce an earnest desire that the same glorious truths 
might be made known to others besides yourselves, 
and that all your neighbours, yea, that all mankind 
should, hke you, be enabled to behold this great 
salvation ? 

My brethren, there are many milhons of men in 
the world, hundreds of miUions, to whom these 
blessed truths are yet unknown. Millions who 
have lost the knowledge of the one true God amid 
a multitude of false or evil deities ; who bow down 
to stocks and stones ; who propitiate their sense^ 
less idols with cruel and bloody sacrifices ; who lose 
sight of their dying friends with no expectation of 
again beholding them, and who go down to the 
grave themselves in doubt and trembling ignorance, 
without hght, without hope, without knowledge of 
a Saviour ! 

Is it your pleasure, is it your desire, that these 
your fellow creatures should be brought from dark- 
ness into hght, that they should share with you 
your helps, your hopes, your knowledge, your sal- 
vation ? Can you pray with sincerity that the 
kingdom of God may come to them as it has come 
to you ; and will you, thus desiring and thus pray- 
ing, refuse to furnish, according to your ability, the 
means of bringing it to them ? You cannot, you 
will not, you dare not ! 

'• But still," it has been said, " if these men are 
ignorant they arc at least safe. If much has not 
been given to them, much will not be required from 



THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN. 201 

them; and if the honest and virtuous heathen hves 
up to his imperfect knowledge, he may be admitted 
by that God whose mercy is over all His works, to 
that Heaven of which he has not received the pro- 
mise." It may be so, and in many instances I trust 
that it will be so. I trust in God that the merits 
of Christ may be the fountain of life to many who, 
in this world, have had no opportunity of tasting 
His living waters. But even this hope will afford 
little comfort to those who look impartially on the 
general conduct of heathen nations, since, though 
a blind and imperfect endeavour after holiness may 
be accepted, the sins even of the most ignorant, so 
long as those sins are committed in opposition to 
the law of nature, and the hght of natural reason 
and conscience, must be exceedingly hateful to 
God, and call down from Him their due measure 
of punishment. It is not necessary to suppose 
that he who was imperfectly informed of his Mas- 
ter's will, and committed things worthy of stripes, 
will be chastised so severely as those sinners who 
enjoyed and abused the full hght of the Gospel ; 
but chastised he must be if the word of God is 
true, and the mildest of God's chastisements are 
described to us in colours dreadful enough to make 
the flesh creep and the ears tingle. 

The heathen, by far the greater part of them, 
are any thing but innocent and conscientious fol- 
lowers of the law of nature. Child-murder, unkind- 
ness to parents, dishonesty, lying, and bloody 
cruelty abound among them to a degree, of which 

VOL. T. 2 I> 



202 SERMON X. 

the wickedness of Christians, great as it is, can 
furnish no adequate idea. And if by some rare 
advantage of temper and situation, a comparatively 
innocent and holy man may here and there be met 
with, Hke " a firebrand plucked out of the burn- 
ing," * this is but a fresh encouragement to make 
known the ways of peace to the multitudes who 
are perishing, and to give to those few, who make 
so good use ot their imperfect lights, the far greater 
help and comfort of the Gospel. Be sure, my 
friends, it is not a needless task which He, who 
knew all things, undertook when He came to give 
light to those who sate in darkness. It was no 
superfluous revelation to confirm which so many 
miracles were wrought, so many prophecies deli- 
vered, so pure and precious blood poured forth on 
the rocks of Calvary. It was no needless labour 
which Christ imposed on His apostles, to go and 
preach His gospel unto every creature, nor is that 
an idle and unmeaning prayer which we are taught 
to utter in the words " Thy kingdom come !" It 
remains to be seen whether our lips and our hearts 
go together. 

If, indeed, the spiritual danger of the heathen 
were less great, if their spiritual advantages were 
greater than we have any reason to suppose them, 
yet, from a regard to their temporal wants, it would 
be our duty to desire and contend for the extension 
of Christianity. Wherever she goes, civilization 

* Amos iv. 11. 



THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN. 203 

follows in her train; wherever she goeg, the duties 
and the rights of mankind are practised and recog- 
nised; the fetters of the slave are hghtened and 
removed ; the female sex are restored to their na- 
tural situation and their kindly influence in society; 
and the profession of godliness is shown to be great 
riches, as contributing to the wisdom, the wealth, 
and the happiness of the nation which receives it. 
Let us compare our present condition with that of 
our forefathers while the Gospel was yet unknown 
to them ! Let us recollect that the poorest man 
who now hears me is more warmly clad, more com- 
fortably lodged, enjoys a mind better stored with 
ideas, and greater security of liberty, life, and pro- 
perty, than a king among the wild Americans or the 
ancient Britons; and we shall feel and understand 
the blessings of a rehgion, which has been the prin- 
cipal agent in a change so beneficial, a religion by 
which the ignorance of man is enlightened, and his 
manners rendered gentle, which, by protecting the 
fruits of industry, has encouraged every useful in- 
vention, and which, even amid the increasing luxury 
of the rich, has lessened the distance between them 
and the poor, by calling the attention of both to 
that awful moment when all shall be equal in 
each other's eyes, as they are now in the eyes of 
their Maker ! 

But, if it is the duty of all Christians every where 
to co-operate in the furtherance of these glorious 
prospects, so there is no nation in the world on 
whom so strong anobhgation of this kind is laid as on 



•204 SERMON X. 

the inhabitants of Great Britain. Our colonies, our 
commerce, our conquests, our discoveries, the em- 
pire which the Almighty has subjected to our sword, 
the purity of our national creed, the apostolic dig- 
nity of our national establishments, what are all 
these but so many calls to labour in the improve- 
ment of the heritage which we have received, so 
many talents entrusted to our charge, of which a 
strict account must be one day rendered ? Shall we 
overlook our heavy debt of blood and tears to injured 
Africa? Shall we forget those innumerable isles 
of the southern ocean first visited by our sails, but 
which so long derived from us nothing but fresh 
wants, fresh diseases, fresh wickedness ? Shall we 
forget the spiritual destitution of those sixty mil- 
lions of our fellow men, yea, our fellow subjects, 
who in India still bow the head to vanities, and tor- 
ment themselves, and burn their mothers, and 
butcher their infants, at the shrine of a mad and 
devilish superstition ? Shall we forget, while every 
sea is traversed by our keels, and every wind brings 
home wealth into our harbours, that we have a 
treasure at home of which those from whom we 
draw our wealth are in the utmost need ; a trea- 
sure, if used aright, more precious than rubies, but 
which, if wilfully and wantonly hid, must, like the 
Spartan fox, destroy and devour its possessor? Oh, 
when you are about to lie down this night, and 
begin, in the words which the Lord has taught 
you, to commend your bodies and souls to His 
protection, will you not blush, will you not trem- 



THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN. 205 

ble to think, while you say to God, " Thy kingdom 
come !" that you have this day refused your con- 
tributions towards the extension of that kingdom ! 
I know you will not refuse them ! Or, is it still 
necessary to recommend to your support that pe- 
culiar instrument of doing good in whose behalf I 
now stand before you, and to vindicate the Church 
Missionary Society from the suspicion of party and 
sectarian motives? This, also, I will attempt, 
though in the great cause of the propagation of the 
Gospel, it is wearisome to descend to disputes as to 
the fittest channel of a benevolence which can 
hardly be directed into a wrong one. There are 
other bodies in our Church associated for the same 
good end ; to them, if you prefer them, carry your 
alms, or let them share with us in your bounty. 
But see, I charge you before God, see that through 
some channel or other that bounty finds it way, 
lest you be found hereafter to have hindered us 
without helping them^ and to have made your or- 
thodox zeal a cloak for your backwardness in the 
cause of the Gospel ! But for our own sake, for 
vours, for the sake of common sense and Christian 
charity, let me protest against that monstrous doc- 
trine that, because there are other and elder so- 
cieties in the Church for the propagation of the 
Gospel, it is, therefore, a mark of disaffection to 
the Church to establish and support a new one for 
the same excellent purpose. From what page of 
Scripture, what period of ecclesiastical history, 
what council, what father of the Church do the 



206 SERMON X. 

supporters of such doctrines derive their argu- 
ments or authority ? When have such restrictions 
as they would forge been imposed even in those 
Churches which carry to the highest pitch their 
admiration of antiquity and precedent ? Was Be- 
nedict accused or suspected of schism when he in- 
stituted a new monastic order instead of uniting 
himself to the elder fraternities under the rules of 
Antony or Pacomius ? Was Francis of Assisi, was 
Dominic, was Ignatius Loyola, all of them the 
founders of new estabhshments, were these men 
told by the zealots of Rome that it became them 
to rest contented with those means of piety or ex- 
ertion which had been bequeathed by the wisdom 
of our ancestors ? Or why should I instance the 
wisdom and liberality of the children of worldly 
prudence in opposition to the errors of those whom 
I acknowledge and reverence as belonging to the 
children of light ? Did, in our own Church, and 
in the days of our immediate fathers, the Society 
for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts pre- 
sume to tell her younger sister for Promoting 
Christian Knowledge that, in sending missionaries 
to India, she was thrusting an intrusive sickle into 
the harvest of another ? There are very many 
motives besides a sectarian spirit which may lead 
men to institute and encourage new institutions 
rather than to throw the whole weight of their 
bounty into the old. While some prefer the wary 
caution of a self-elected corporation, others may, 
with at least a show of reason, and certainly with- 



THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN. 207 

out just offence to any, conceive that more good is 
likely to be produced by the popular and expansive 
force of a society where every member has a voice 
in the appHcation of his contributions. With many, 
a personal knowledge of the directors of one asso- 
ciation will induce them to prefer it to another 
equally respectable, and there are many who, from 
experience of the superior activity possessed by 
most recent institutions, will expect greater and 
more beneficial exertions from a new society for no 
other reason than because it is new^ But, while 
there is room and employment for all, while there 
is a unity of faith, a unity of object, a unity of 
symbols and Sacraments, a unity of rehgious and 
canonical obedience, and, above all, a unity of 
Christian charity, such institutions may all wish 
each other good luck in the name of the Lord, 
with no other rivalry than that of which shall best 
serve their common Master. 

There is another, however, and a more plausible 
objection made to us, that our Society is only os- 
tensibly anxious for the conversion of the heathen, 
or the general iuterests of Christianity, while its 
main attention is directed, and its inevitable conse- 
quences tend to the support of a party among 
ourselves, whose rise and prevalence have been for 
some years the objects of pecuhar jealousy to the 
majority of the Church of England. Now it might 
be, perhaps, sufficient in answer, to inquire by 
what means, supposing its members to have such 
intentions, those intentions could be forwarded by 



208 SERMON X. 

a society for foreign missions. Is it by a fraudulent 
appropriation to other purposes of the funds which 
we raise for this specific object ? Our annual ac- 
counts are before the world ; nor has, indeed, a 
villany of this nature been, at any time, imputed 
to us. Is it by selection of enthusiastic or fana- 
tical missionaries, or missionaries remarkable for 
their adherence to obnoxious opinions ? Even here 
it w^ould be hard to say how the purposes of party 
at home would be forwarded by sending our most 
active partisans abroad ; nor would the advantage 
to the Church be less evident of a conduct which 
removed from her bosom those persons whose pre- 
sence is supposed to disturb her peace, to scenes 
where their peculiarities could do little harm, 
while the warmth of their zeal might carry them 
through obstacles under which a calmer spirit 
would sink. 

I will not, however, dissemble my sentiments, 
nor can any advantage arise from a pretended ig- 
norance of the nature of those accusations which 
are brought against us. If it had been the object, 
if it had been the practice of this Society, to dis- 
seminate among the Heathen, or elsewhere, those 
peculiar views of Christianity which are known by 
the name of Calvin, beUeving, as I do, though with 
sincere respect and esteem for the virtue and 
talents by which those doctrines have been adorned 
and supported, but believing, as I do, those doc- 
trines to be most injurious to the Divine Majesty, 
-and most pernicious in their ordinary and natural 



THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN. 209 

effects on the human mind, I, for one, would have 
sought some other means of contributing to the 
propagation of the Gospel. 

But, I speak from personal knowledge when I say 
that, in no one case has any preference been given 
in the choice of missionaries to the followers of 
Calvin over those of Ar mini us ; and that while en- 
thusiasm of all kinds has been discouraged by the 
managers of our institution, with a jealousy little 
less than that which has been exerted against 
positive immorality, they have been contented to 
exhort their agents to a more zealous attention to 
those points in which all Churchmen are agreed, 
and to moderation as to those on which they them- 
selves were divided* 

It is by our fruits, however, that we desire to be 
judged, and if the exclusive employment of mis- 
sionaries, either episcopally ordained at home, or 
furnished by those Lutheran Churches of Ger- 
many whence the Society for Promoting Christian 
Knowledge has derived some of its most distin- 
guished labourers : if the translation of the English 
liturgy into three new languages, and its introduc- 
tion into weekly use among the negroes of Africa, 
and the ancient Syrian churches in India ; if the 
consignment of a very considerable sum of money to 
the entire disposal of the excellent and apostoUcal 
Bishop of Calcutta,* and a desire, repeatedly expres- 
sed and consistently acted on, to submit our mis- 

^ The Right Rev.T. F. Middleton,D.D., first Bishop of Calcutta. 
VOL. T. 2 F. 



210 8ERM0N X. 

sionaries in the east to his spiritual guidance and 
prudent counsels ; if these are marks of allegiance 
to the Church, we may at least disclaim the charge 
of having departed from her, and we may hope 
that our attention to her sound form of words and 
doctrine may be blessed by the Almighty as a means 
of grace to millions who now sit in darkness. 

On these grounds it is that, as Englishmen, as 
Churchmen, as Christians, as lovers of the virtues 
and happiness of mankind, I now appeal to your 
bounty. And that our alms may go up before the 
sight of God, and be blessed both to the givers, the 
objects, and the dispensers, let me entreat your 
prayers through the merits of Him in whose name 
only is strength or righteousness. 



SERMON XL 



THE DISPERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

[Preached for the British and Foreign Bible Society, at 
Shrewsbury, 5th Sept. 1813.] 



Rev. xiv. 6. 

I saw another angel fly in the midst of Heaven, having the ever 
lasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell in the earth 
and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. 

Being called upon, with the permission of your 
ordinary pastors, to plead in this place the cause 
of the British and ForeignBible Society,! conceive 
it to be incumbent on a minister of the Church of 
England addressing an assembly of the same per- 
suasion, to examine with patient impartiality the 
objections which have been levelled against this 
institution, as unfavourable or unfriendly to the 
religious establishments of our country. A more 
grateful task it would indeed have been to consider 
the broad and general duties of diffusing religious 
knowledge, and the glorious facilities which our 
present combination affords for sowing the seeds of 
eternal Ufe in soils the most distant and unkindly ! 
For, whether we seek to turn the nominal Chris- 
tian from the error of his ways, or whether it be 



•212 SERMON XL 

the blinded heathen whose eyes we strive to open, 
no means of improvement can be employed more 
effectual, none, assuredly, less obvious to objection, 
than the dispersion of the oracles of God. Other 
preachers may be intemperate or careless; they 
may shock by hasty zeal, or disgust by unsuitable 
demeanor, but these holy volumes are every where 
pure, and consistent, and peaceable. The indo- 
lence of the times, the difficulty of access, the 
drawn sword of persecution may impede, perhaps, 
the missionaries' progress ; but though the feet of 
those that bear good tidings may linger on the 
mountains, the word of God runneth very swiftly : 
and wherever education has gone before, the 
natural curiosity of mankind will secure to these 
wonderful testimonies a favourable and attentive 
reception. If, indeed, the one great object which 
is pursued by the society in whose behalf I now 
address you, be regarded ; if the effects which it has 
already produced be estimated, and those which 
its augmented means of action may enable it here- 
after to accomplish, it might be hoped that no 
scanty blessing, no unhallowed destiny would fol- 
low an association like ours. It might be hoped, 
without the guilt of enthusiastic vanity, that the 
prophecy of my text were even now to receive its 
fulfilment, that Hke that angel whom John beheld 
bearing on his mighty wings the confession of 
Christ's religion, our society should advance in the 
strength of faith conquering and to conquer, till all 
that now oppose or distrust shall have unlearnt 



THE DISPERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 213 

their fears and repented them of their unjust impu- 
tations, till hostile sects and hostile nations shall 
have united heart and hand in the dispersion of 
their common Gospel, till the acts of civilization 
and the graces of Christianity shall have sprung up 
beneath our fostering care in the forests of the 
savage, and the hills of the robber, and till the 
universal earth shall be filled with " the knowledge 
of the Lord as the waters cover the sea !"* 

With such an object in our view, it is hard indeed, 
and discouraging, that our labours should be regard- 
ed with distrust and coldness by many of those 
whose approbation we would most desire; that, 
hke the founder of the Roman walls, our own bre- 
thren insult our progress, and that we are com- 
pelled to encounter the charge of hostility or indif- 
ference to those rituals, which, next to God's own 
oracles, are the objects of our greatest reverence ; 
unless, yielding to this clamour, we desert the prin- 
ciples of our union, and reject, as Nehemiah re- 
jected the Samaritans, the proffered and powerful 
aid of our Christian and Protestent brethren. True 
it is, that, if we consider the former history of our 
Enghsh Church, or those general principles of hu- 
man nature which, under similar circumstances, 
conduct to results unavoidably similar, we shall 
find but little reason for surprise in the objections 
which, from certain quarters, are so strongly urged 
against our institution. The Church of England 

* Isaiah xi. 9. 



214 SERMON XI. 

was, we know, baptized in blood, and while the 
scars of her early sufferings still remain to warn her 
children against inconsiderate innovation, she may 
well be pardoned, if to others the spirit of her 
estabhshment should sometimes appear too jealous 
and exclusive. 

Those who are in possession of what many covet, 
are apt, from that very circumstance, to become 
distrustful; those who have an extensive fortress 
to defend, are wisely and piously vigilant, lest by 
their remissness even the slightest outwork be be- 
trayed. Far from imputing unworthy motives to 
such as have thus warmly opposed us, I view with 
respect even errors which are founded on a zeal for 
God's house; I venerate their feelings, I lament 
their apprehensions : and if I myself have acted dif- 
ferently, it is because I am convinced that those 
apprehensions are the phantoms only of prejudice 
or misinformation; it is from an experience that 
such grisly shadows need but be approached to lose 
their terrors ; to drop like the monsters of a twi- 
light journey, their formidable crests and giant 
arms, and sink before the light of reason into that 
harmless insignificance from which the magic of 
fear has raised them. 

Of the two peculiarities which, while we regard 
them as the main pillars of our institution, have 
been the innocent cause of so much serious offence 
and alarm, it may be said, without fear of contra- 
diction, that while the dangers ascribed to them 
are at most obscure and contingent, the regu- 



THE DISPERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 215 

iations themselves are of obvious and immediate 
utility. 

By the admixture of sects in our governing 
committee, we obtain a greater and more concen- 
trated power of inculcating rehgious knowledge 
than can be possessed by any separate exertions of 
those rehgious parties which compose our union, 
and we remove all possibility of difference as to the 
sort of knowledge to be diffused, by confining our 
exertions, as a body, to the dispensing that one 
work whose authority we all profess to venerate, 
and to which, as to the very throne and oracle of 
truth, we severally make our appeal. 

The first of these assertions it may seem almost 
a waste of time to prove. Its principle is acknow- 
ledged in every alliance of human beings for the 
purposes of peace or war ; nature and experience 
cry aloud with ten thousand voices that united 
strength is stronger by that union, that efforts un- 
combined are weak both singly and in the aggre- 
gate, and that in anarchies of every kind, dum sin- 
guli pugnant universi vincuntiir. It may be said, 
indeed, that the same advantages which the social 
possesses over the solitary state, are possessed by 
one large over many smaller combinations. The 
result of union is more than a simple addition of 
those items which each could separately furnish ; 
not only each individual does more, and does it 
with greater ease when aided by the stimulus of 
example and fellowship, but works may be under- 



216 SERMON XL 

taken, which, except by the force of numbers, it 
would be physically impossible to effect. 

Nor is this all ; great bodies have the power and 
the tendency to multiply themselves faster than 
small. They attract more of the world's attention ; 
they offer themselves to the eyes of men in a mag- 
nitude which cannot be overlooked, and attract 
allies and proselytes with a force continually in- 
creasing, and a zeal whose contagious example is 
the stronger by being concentrated. The exertions 
and successes of the Jesuits in the seventeenth 
century, of the propaganda college, and those 
other gigantic institutions which owe their birth to 
the refined policy of the papal government, are all 
so many illustrations of this principle. In later 
times, and with a purer faith, the Moravian brethren 
afford us a similar example, and many of those 
who, while they approve of our grand object, are 
offended by our spirit of union are themselves by 
no means blinded to the mischief and danger of a 
house divided against itself, and lament as loudly 
as any men those unhappy differences among the 
people of God, whereby our Saviour's seamless 
coat is rent, and the progress of His faith impeded- 
It is urged, however, on the other hand, that the 
Bible Society has itself a tendency to increase and 
perpetuate those divisions of which our land is sick 
unto death. It is said that we (for I am speaking 
as a churchman, and it it an assembly of Church- 
men whom I address.") admit the dissenters to an 



THE DISPERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 217 

equality with ourselves : that we throw our weight 
into their scale, and that by enabling them to dis- 
tribute Bibles, we give them additional influence 
over the minds of the poor. It is further prophe- 
sied that a latitudinarian feehng, an indijfference 
on our parts to all the pecuharities of our estab- 
lishment, will be the consequence of this our pious 
intercourse ; while by some unexplained and un- 
explainable difference in our own temperament and 
that of our allies, their prejudices are to be all con- 
firmed by the same process which eradicates our 
ancient attachments. 

The first of these objections I would answer 
shortly, that as we have never claimed precedence, 
so we abandon none. I know not any superiority 
except that of truth which one rehgious sect has a 
right, as such, to demand over another ; and I am 
confident that truth, wherever that is found, cannot 
be more effectually forwarded than by the friendly 
intercourse in good works of those who conscien- 
tiously differ. It will not, it cannot be esteemed a 
weakening of our faith to learn the characters of 
our opponents ; nor injurious to those feelings with- 
out which faith is vain, if we separate a becoming 
horror of their heresy fi*om an uncharitable scorn 
of their persons. 

But is it meant that when we admit their teach- 
ers to vote with us, even in those spiritual concerns 
respecting which we are all agreed, we proclaim to 
the world, by so doing, that we apprehend no dif- 
ference between their opinions and those which we 

VOL. I. 2F 



•^18 SEUlVluN XI. 

have professed so solemnly ? — none between their 
commission to preach the Gospel and that which 
is, in our own case, derived from the apostles ? — 
none between the Gospel taught by them and that 
which we have ourselves received ? I answer, ra- 
ther, by proving to these our brethren and to the 
world that, where our conscience will allow us, we 
are ready to co-operate with them in every good 
work ; we stamp our disapprobation of their pecu- 
har tenets with tenfold force and value ; we divest 
our orthodoxy of all reasonable suspicion of worldly 
pride or interest, and evince that when, in proper 
time and place, we declare what we conceive to be 
the errors of these our friends, we declare the genu- 
ine, and painful, and brotherly feelings of our heart 
and conscience. 

By those, in the second place, who object to the 
increasing influence of dissenters among the poor 
by the Bibles which they are thus enabled to dis- 
tribute, it should be remembered that, if there be 
any force at all in their reasoning, it will apparently 
prove too much. Influence is unquestionably ob- 
tained by the donor of food, or clothing, or medi- 
cine, as well as by the gratuitous distributer of the 
Sacred Volume, and we must, therefore, refuse our 
co-operation not only to this society but to all 
others, whether they be patriotic or charitable in- 
stitutioits, from which dissenters are not excluded. 
But further, if tlie numbers of Churchmen predo- 
minate in the Bible Society (and if they do not 
predomijiato to whoso fault is that attributable -' 



THE DISPERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 219 

certainly not to theirs who are reviled and slan- 
dered for supporting it,) if our numbers predomi- 
nate, it is plain that more comparative influence 
will be obtained by our party than by theirs ; so 
that to remove this objection at least the means 
are in our own possession. Or granting, what is not 
now the case, and by God's help never shall be, 
that the number of dissenters were greater than 
that of Churchmen in the Bible Society, yet, even 
thus, it is plain that the more Bibles the former 
bestow, the fewer of their peculiar tracts they will 
have the means of bestowing, and that a part of 
their strength, so far as that strength is hostile to 
our cause, will thus be manifestly neutralized. But. 
in truth, I do not envy the applause or patronage 
of that Churchman who can murmur at a good 
work because it is done by a Samaritan; or forbid 
his brother to cast out devils in the name of the 
Lord " because he followeth not with us."* The 
Gospel, by whatever hands distributed, is the Gos- 
pel notwithstanding ; nor is such distribution to be 
regarded with ill will by the successors of that great 
apostle to whom we trace our British hierarchy, 
who rejoiced in his bonds that Christ was preached, 
though He were preached " even of envy and 
strife."t 

To the third objection, as I am at a loss to dis- 
cover on what principle it is founded, I am cer- 
tainly not a little perplexed to reply. Does it pro- 

*St. Lnkeix. 49. fPhi]. i. 15. 



220 SERMON XI. 

ceed on the results of former experience ? Is ii 
from analogy that our opponents reason ? or from 
that, which their alarm should tacitly appear to 
confess, the activity of the separatists and the su- 
pineness of our established clergy ? But of an as- 
sociation on the principles of the Bible Society no 
precise example (unfortunately for the Christian 
world,) no precise example can be found ; and in 
those smaller repubhcs of Switzerland or Germany 
whose chequered sects have been brought into a 
state of contact not altogether dissimilar, it will be 
mostly seen that the Romanists, as the major num- 
ber, have triumphed over the others ; that the less 
has not attracted the greater body, but the greater, 
as might be expected, has absorbed the less. Where, 
indeed, indifference to the distinctive features of 
two or more rehgious parties prevails, the very imi- 
tative nature of mankind will give the preference 
to the rehgion of the majority ; and where so many 
circumstances unite in favour of an establishment 
hke ours, it is, surely, not too much to expect that 
the establishment will be a gainer. 

To the activity, however, of the dissenters in 
disseminating their pecuUar tenets, our common 
experience bears testimony. It is an activity which 
might reasonably be expected in the smaller body 
of the assailants, who have by so much a stronger 
stimulus than the defenders of an establishment, as 
the hope of obtaining is keener than the sense of 
possession. But that this active hostility will be 
increased by tolerance, that their religious animo- 



TITE DISPERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 221 

sity will receive strength as their personal suspi- 
cions die away, is hardly a consequence to be ap- 
prehended. And that the supineness imputed to 
our own pastors is exaggerated, grossly exagge- 
rated, both by the vaunts of our adversaries and 
the slanderous fears of our friends, that the activity 
of separatists has produced a corresponding re-ac- 
tion on our part, and that we are ourselves improved 
both in diligence and union, in proportion as such 
qualities are needed, is a truth which the experi- 
ence of the last twenty years may appear suffi- 
ciently to prove. Nor will it, nor can it be said 
that those Churchmen and prelates who have sup- 
ported and do support the Bible Society, are the 
least active, the least zealous, the least popular of 
their order in the discharge of their professional 
duties, or the most deficient in that conciliatory 
spirit which, from the time of the apostles to the 
present hour, has been found the best means of 
conversion, and which is made all things to all men, 
that it may " by all means save some."^ 

To those, in fact, who with so loud alarm vocife- 
rate that the Church is falling into the hands of 
schismatics, I would answer with the Theban Pe- 
lopidas on a very different occasion, " and why not 
they into ours .'^" Why, if any prepossessions are re- 
moved by such a union as that of the Bible Society, 
should not those of the dissenting members be ex- 
pected to give ground ? Is our rehgion so impure. 

* 1 Cor. ix. 22. 



222 SERMON XI. 

our worship so superstitious, our preaching so un- 
learned or so unchristian that we may fear a compa- 
rison with any church in the world? Is it not rather 
to be hoped that those, who, from honest though 
mistaken motives, have been estranged from our 
communion, when that distance is overpast which 
now gives room for misapprehension or calumny 
when they behold us in our natural features, and, 
hear us in our natural tones of peace and charity ; 
when they find our prelates and pastors, our lay- 
men and divines engaged in the same good cause 
as themselves, courting them to union, and ready 
to unite with them so far as we can unite without 
partaking of their schism ; is it not to be hoped 
that, instead of perverting us, they may themselves 
be changed, that they may be led to reflect on the 
apparent needlessness of their separation, and re- 
turn to those arms which are with brotherly love 
extended to receive them ? 

But, alas my friends, in days like these, of unex- 
ampled licentiousness and danger, when not the 
private interests of particular Churches, but the 
universal faith of Christianity is assailed; while 
irreligion and immorality hold the larger and un- 
enlightened portion of the world in chains ; while 
among the half-thinking and the half-learned, infi- 
delity has so widely scattered her venom; while 
the exploded dreams of ancient atheism are revived 
by men in high stations ; and while the editors of 
low blasphemy are applauded by the rabble in their 
place of punishment, these are no times when the 



rHE BiSPERSIOiN OF THE iSCRlPTURElS. 223 

inutual transgressions of brethren are to be remem- 
bered, or when the defenders of the faith are to 
quarrel among themselves as to the nature of their 
commission, or the fashion of their arms ! If we 
cannot worship together, let us at least do good in 
company ; and if the inferences which we draw 
from the Word of God, on certain points, unfortu- 
nately vary, let us the more anxiously unite to dis- 
pense that pure Word itself, which, by the confes- 
sion of all sides, is able to make men " wise unto 
salvation." * 

Here, however, have other and very different 
objections been started ; and as these are levelled 
at the second fundamental rule of our institution, 
I must again remind you that the sole object of 
our union is the circulation of the Scriptures 
without note or comment. To this two objections 
have been made ; the first, that the design is in 
itself inexpedient ; the second, that it is imperfect 
and insufficient. Of the two learned authors bv 
whom these positions are advanced, the first main- 
tains that the indiscriminate circulation of all parts 
of the Bible is neither commanded in Scripture, 
nor advantageous to the souls of men. The second 
assures us that to distribute the Scriptures alone is 
to stop short in that dissemination of sound reli- 
gious knowledge, which it is incumbent on us all 
to forward, and that in the particular case of 
Churchmen, a society which distributes the Sacred 

='= 2Tim.iii. 15, 



224 SERMON XI. 

Volume only, has a tendency to induce a neglect 
of the Common Prayer. 

I have stated these objections without any wilful 
exaggeration, and I have stated them calmly and 
gravely; yet, indeed, it is with some certain diffi- 
culty that any man imbued with that common vene- 
ration for the Scriptures, which protestants as yet 
retain, or with that common knowledge of logic 
which was once a necessary part of education , can 
refrain from astonishment at the apparent heresy 
contained in the first assertion, or a something more 
than astonishment at the lamentable inconsequence 
of the latter. 

That there are some things in the Sacred Vo- 
lume hard to be understood, and that profane and 
self-willed readers may wrest them to their own 
destruction is a truth, indeed, of which the Scrip- 
ture itself instructs us. But from this acknow- 
ledged principle it can by no means follow as an 
inference that we are at hberty to retrench, or alter, 
or intercept from the perusal of Christ's little ones, 
any portion of those books which the Spirit of God 
has prompted, and which are all alike intended for 
the religious nourishment of all. 

I know not any blessing of the Almighty which 
may not be abused ; but I am sure that the casual 
abuse of food, or raiment, or instruction, will justify 
no man in withholding such blessings from any who 
need his assistance. (I ask not by what authority, 
short of that infallible pontiff to whom such specu- 
lations not obscurely tend, we can decide what 



THE DISPERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES, 225 

portions of Scripture are unnecessary or unprofita- 
ble ; but it may be demanded without offence, whe- 
ther most errors both in doctrine and practice have 
not arisen from a partial and imperfect acquaint- 
ance with the word of God, and whether it be not 
from the general and ungarbled testimony of the 
Sacred Volume, from its arrangement as a system 
and the mutual light afforded by its several trea- 
tises and histories, that our rehgious faith is to be 
formed ; a faith not founded on some detached and 
doubtful passages, but on the united testimony of 
the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ " Himself 
being the chief corner-stone."* 

To multiply authorities in a case of this sort were 
to weary out myself and you; for neither has 
Hooker taught in vain that " the reading of Scrip- 
ture is effectual, as well to lay the first foundation, 
as to add degrees of further perfection in the fear 
of God ;" nor was Chillingworth deceived when he 
urged that, in necessary points, all Scripture is 
intelligible; nor has our Church unprofitably or- 
dained that the whole Sacred Volume be read 
through in order in the course of every year.f 

* Ephes. ii. 20. 

f Ce iivre sacre — est, a la verite, intelligible a tout le monde 
par rapport d ce qu'il faut croire et faire pour obtenir de la mi- 
sericorde de Dieu le salut eternel qui y est annonce et promifi 
sous la condition de la foi et de la saintete. Ainsi le peuple fidele 
a qui ses occupacions en son genre de vie ne permettent pas tou- 
jours de se munir des secours dont on vient de parler, a pourtant 
cette consolation d'y trouver les verites salutaires sous beaucoup 
d'etude et de meditation ; comma, d'autre cote, il est inexcusable 

VOL, I. 2 a 



226 SERMON XL 

To the learned author of the second objection, no 
doctrine can be imputed so irreverent to Scripture9 
or so repugnant to the practice of our Church^ 
His assertion, as he has himself explained it, and 
when stripped of that cloud which the dust of con- 
troversy can spread around the most harmless tenet, 
is merely that the zealous partizan of certain doc- 
trines will not be contented with the distribution of 
the Bible alone, but will subjoin such tracts or com- 
mentaries as explain the Bible according to his own 
opinions. This is a doctrine which I am not dis- 
posed to controvert, any more than I shall deny the 
second proposition of his syllogism, that the Bible 
Society do not, in their corporate capacity, distri- 
bute any such tracts or commentaries. If then his 
conclusion had been that the whole duty of a mem- 
ber of our Church is not comprised in uniting him- 
self to the Bible Society, I should acknowledge his 
argument to be legitimate, though I should wonder, 
perhaps at the labour bestowed on a proposition so 
self-evident. But is it really possible to infer from 
premises hke these, that the Bible Society induces 
in Churchmen a disregard to the liturgy and doc- 
trinal tracts of the Church ? If an oath were im- 
posed on our members that we should belong to no 
other institution; that in our private bounty we 
should circulate no religious books except the Bible 
without note or comment, his reasoning would in- 
deed possess both consistence and plausibility. 

s'il ne les y cherchc pas sous pretexte de son ignorance. — Beau- 
sobrc, Pref. Gen. sur le N. T. p. 11. 



THE DISPERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 227 

While, however, we remain at full liberty to take 
what steps we please for disseminating the Uturgy 
from other funds, and in other associations, while 
many, nay most of us do, in fact, belong to associ- 
ations for that definite purpose, his argument is 
almost as accurate as if he had insisted that they 
who distribute food to the poor, will therefore neg- 
lect to give them medicine; or that he whom we 
behold to-day officiating at the altar or the read- 
ing-desk, renounces by that overt act all future in- 
tention of serving God as a preacher. 

By advice, nevertheless, from whatever motive it 
proceed, we may well and wisely profit ; and if the 
insinuations which I have noticed, effect, even in a 
single district, an increased distribution of the Com» 
mon Prayer ; if our members, such of them as pro- 
fess our established religion, are by these means 
awakened to a livelier zeal for its distinguishing and 
peculiar doctrines ; if performing the one part of 
their duty they leave not " the other undone,"* and 
by associations elsewhere supply, according to their 
ability, that species of knowledge to the poor, which 
our society cannot with consistency offer, the cause 
of not the Church alone, but of Christianity itself, 
will no doubt be greatly forwarded ; and this dis- 
gusting controversy, like the carcass of Samson's 
lion, will be the means of enriching the world with 
added industry, and sweetness, and nourishment. 

To those, however, whose means of doing good 

* St. Matth. xxiii. 23. 



228 SERMON XI. 

are limited, and to those zealous persons who mur- 
mur in no doubtful terms at the increased circula- 
tion of the Sacred Volume, abounding, as it does 
abound, beyond all contemporaneous dissemination 
of human forms ; who account the Scriptures an 
aliment of so doubtful virtue as to become poison 
unless accompanied by the proper antidote, and 
had rather men should sit in darkness than that they 
should attempt to find out light for themselves ; to 
such I would earnestly suggest, that of two advan- 
tages, where both cannot be attained, it is an ob- 
vious wisdom to pursue the greater ; that till our 
neighbours be supplied with the Scripture, the com- 
positions of human wisdom may for a time give 
place ; that a rule of faith would cease to be a rule, 
if it needed something whereby itself should be 
measured ; and that if the Scripture be in itself 
sufficient to salvation, the dispersion of no other 
tracts or rituals can be of the same necessity. 

Of human forms of prayer, and human exposi- 
tions of the Bible, it may be said in general tha 
they are means of grace warranted by God's 
word, and profitable to the souls of men. Of our 
own liturgy and homilies we with thankfulness 
acknowledge that they breathe the real spirit 
of Christianity, and unite apostohc wisdom with 
apostolic purity. But of all such it is confessed 
that, as they boast no lustre save that which 
is reflected from Scripture, so they may vanish 
without obscuring the face of nature, if that 
j?reat luminary be itself in the midst of Heaven. 



THE DISPERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 229 

The Church of Christ has done without them, and 
may again dispense with their fainter ghmmerings; 
but if the day spring from on high be intercepted, 
how shall not the light which is in us be darkened ; 
Be this our glory and our crown, that we have la- 
boured and do labour in the dispersion of these 
wonderful testimonies ; that to this one authority 
we refer our several claims, convinced that where 
the word of God is, God Himself is not far distant ; 
that in His presence is light, and by this light shall 
every man's building be proved, whether it be gold 
or silver, stubble or hay. 

On these grounds, and supported by these rea- 
sons, I now entreat your assistance for the Bible 
Society. Of what we have done already, and what 
we purpose by your bounty to perform, of the glo- 
rious distribution of God's word which has by our 
means been effected in the Christian world, and of 
those still wider prospects which the land of" them 
that sit in darkness" offers, the time forbids me, and I 
hold it unnecessary, to enlarge. I might tell you of 
the ignorant enlightened, of the poor made rich,of the 
prisoner by our means released from a worse capti- 
vity ; I might point out to you that Germany, from 
whence our own reformation was derived,now taught 
and comforted by our filial piety. I might show uni- 
versal Christendom rejoicing in our light ; and hos- 
tile nations offering up their prayers for England, 
the friend of souls ; I might boast of the bounds of 
knowledge extended, and paint genius and learn- 
ing braving in our cause the toils of barbarous dia- 



230 SERMON XL 

lects and the terrors of pestilential climates. Your 
attention might, lastly, be directed to those mighty 
fields whose harvest has not yet sounded under the 
Christian reaping-hook, to benighted Africa wait- 
ing for our illumination, and to those vast regions 
of Indian ignorance which Providence has planted 
under our country's care. But I need not urge you 
farther; these things have not been done in a 
corner ; our sound has gone forth into all lands, 
and our words unto the ends of the earth ; and as 
you wish these blessings to continue, and these 
hopes to be reahzed, the world itself, for whose 
spiritual instruction I plead, in God's name de- 
mands your assistance. I entreat you then, my 
brethren, as you would not be found wanting in the 
work of Christ, to join our holy fellowship ; as you 
would escape the curse pronounced against those 
who come not forth to the help of the Lord, I 
conjure you that you stand not idle in this His vic- 
tory ! But remember, above all things, if you desire 
these labours to be available to your own salvation, 
as well as to the salvation of other men, if you hope 
to partake in those spiritual blessings which your 
bounty may distribute, remember that we vainly 
make others wise while our own hearts are blinded 
and ignorant ; that it is not enough to give the 
Bible to the poor unless we also study it ourselves, 
and unless our daily prayers and daily actions 
cherish and display that faith and hope of which 
this blessed volume is the treasury ! 

And, oh merciful God, who hast caused all holy 



THE DISPERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 231 

Scriptures to be written for our learning, grant 
that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, 
learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience 
and comfort of Thy holy word, we may embrace 
and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting 
life, which thou hast given us through Jesus Christ 
our Lord ! 



SERMON XII. 



THE DUTIES OF THE MINISTRY- 

[Preached at Chester, 1819.*] 



Matt. ix. 38. 



Pray ye^ therefore^ the Lord of the harvest, that he will send 
forth labourers into his harvest. 

What is meant by this harvest of the Almighty 
Father, and what manner of labourers they were 
for whom the disciples of our Lord are instructed 
thus to pray, are points which require no explana- 
tion. There are two questions, however, which 
naturally arise from these words of Christ : First. 
Whether the injunction here given to pray for a 
supply of ministers in His Church were confined to 
the apostles alone, or whether it extend to every 
Christian and every age of Christianity } Secondly. 
In what manner they who offered such a prayer 

* This Sermon was published with the following Dedication : 

" TO THE RIGHT REV. GEORGE HENRY LAW, D.D. LORD BISHOP 
OF CHESTER, [bATH AND WELLS,] WHOSE TALENTS AND VIR- 
TUES HAVE ENDEARED HIM TO THE CLERGY OF HIS OWN 
AND EVERY NEIGHBOURING DIOCESE, THE FOLLOWING SER- 
MON, PUBLISHED IN DEFERENCE TO HIS OPINION, IS MOST 
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED." 



THE DUTIES OF THE MINISTRY. 2^3 

were to look for its fulfilment from God, and by 
what actions of their own they were to concur with 
and forward the accomphshment of their devout 
desires ? In other words, we are led to examine 
the necessity of a continued succession of Chris- 
tian teachers, and the means whereby this succes- 
sion is to be preserved and rendered effectual. 

I. That a due supply and succession of preachers 
and ministers of the Gospel is a circumstance of 
the greatest importance and necessity to the ex- 
tension and perpetuation of truth, to the know- 
ledge and happiness of mankind, and to the glory 
of our common Master, is a truth which a moderate 
acquaintance with the history of the world, and 
even a careless survey of its present state, will 
easily enable us to determine. There have, indeed^ 
at different periods of Christianity, been found 
some enthusiastic believers who, by a too literal 
application to the mihtant Church, of expressions 
by which the prophets have described her trium- 
phant condition, have been induced to renounce 
and deprecate all human means of instruction as 
derogating from that abundant and universal illu- 
mination of the Spirit, which was to be the distin- 
guishing glory of the Messiah's sovereignty. 

But to a fancy of this kind the facts which we 
behold are a sufficient answer, inasmuch as, under- 
stand the passages in question as literally as we 
please, it is certain that they cannot apply in such 
a literal sense to the actual condition of human 
beings. In no sense can it be said that the time 

VOL, T. 2 H 



234 SERMON XII. 

is arrived, when " the knowledge of the Lord 
should cover the world as the waters cover the 
sea." And, in a literal sense, it certainly cannot be 
pretended that the majority of Christians enjoy 
such a communion with their Maker, as that none 
should need to teach his neighbour, seeing that all 
were taught of God. Not yet the harvest of the 
Son of Man is reaped, nor has the number of His 
labourers been, as yet, at any time, adequate to 
the accomplishment of the awful work before them. 
Besides the boundless extent of heathen nations, 
which even now are ready for the sickle, and who 
chide, even now, the delays which detain the mis- 
sionary from their neglected furrows, in those lands 
which Heaven has most favoured, and which have 
been most abundantly traversed by Heaven's ap- 
pointed labourers, how vast a gleaning yet remains 
of the souls who have escaped our dihgence, how 
abundant a crop is daily rising round us, on which 
the dihgence of our successors must be exerted ! 

They are not the heathen only, they are not 
those whom the grosser darkness covers, and who 
have abided, thus far, in the land of the shadows of 
death ; they are not these alone who wait for our 
aid, and in whose behalf we need new helpers.-— 
There are those who, already regenerate, require 
renewal and confirmation; who, having once en- 
joyed the light of truth, have shrunk back into the 
shades of ungodliness; who panting after the 
waters of comfort, have sought for them in strange 
and broken cisterns, and whom it behoves us to 



THE DUTIES OF THE MINISTRY. 235 

conduct to that true and living well, of which 
whoso drinketh, shall thirst no more. 

So long as these iniquities abound, so long as 
these errors prevail, so long is it our part, our in- 
terest, and our privilege, to ask light for them that 
sit in darkness, and support for them that are weak ; 
refreshment for them that travail and are heavy 
laden ; and, in order to these ends, to pray the 
Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth to 
His field, the needful supply of spiritual husband- 
men. 

Accordingly, so far was the Author of our reli- 
gion from countenancing any such hope of univer- 
sal and equal illumination, that, when, on his own 
departure from the world, he gave commission to 
His apostles to preach the Gospel, He assured them, 
at the same time, that His spiritual presence and 
aid should remain with them till His second and 
visible advent in glory. " The end of the world'* 
was first to come, before His assistance was to be 
withdrawn, and, since this assistance was promised 
them not generally as Christians, but in their ap- 
propriate character of ministers of the Gospel, it 
follows, that their ministry, or the ministry of others 
like themselves, was not to find an end till the great 
and final sabbath of nature. 

It is not, indeed, the prevalent error of the pre- 
sent times, either to deny the necessity or underrate 
the importance of the evangelical office, or of that 
constant supply of labourers which the wants of 
Christ's harvest continue every day to call for with 



236 SERMON XU. 

increasing earnestness. On the other hand it is 
rather to be lamented that, while many causes 
operate to deter men from seeking an admission 
into the ministry by the regular and legitimate 
channel, the fences of the sheep-fold are scaled on 
every side by a crowd of well-meaning but ill-in- 
formed volunteers in the cause, who intrude them- 
selves with unfortunate rashness into an office, the 
labour and anxiety of which are only to be learned 
by experience ; and incumber by their disorderly 
efforts, the work which, I willingly bear them wit- 
ness, it is their earnest desire to forward. 

This error (for such I hope to prove it) is in a 
great degree, of modern origin. The ancient op- 
ponents of our Church, in the days of James and 
Charles, were, for the most part, as fully convinced 
as ourselves, of the necessity of Church union, and 
the advantages of a legitimate ministry; though 
they denied to the Church of England the charac- 
ter of a true Church of Christ, and though their 
ordination wanted, in our opinion, the sanction of 
apostolic authority. But the question then agitated 
between us was not whether a schism, or unneces- 
sary separation from the body of the Church was 
not sinful (since both parties allowed that it was a 
sin of no ordinary dye), but whether the Church of 
England was so corrupt and idolatrous as to have 
forfeited the allegiance of her members; not whe- 
ther an external authoritative call from the rulers 
of the Church was needful to designate a Christian 
minister, (for both sides were by far too well read 



THE DUTIES OF THE MINISTRY. 237 

m the Scriptures and ecclesiastical antiquity to 
make a doubt about the matter), but wliether this 
power of admission and ordination resided with 
the presbytery or with the bishop, and whether the 
authority of this last was an usurpation of the 
darker ages, or really founded on inspired and 
apostolic precedent. 

At present, by far the greater number of those 
who have separated from our Church appear, so 
far as I have conversed with them, to find little, if 
?iny, fault with her doctrines, and to regard her 
discipline with perfect indifference. Ask any mem- 
ber of an ordinary dissenting congregation the 
grounds of his secession from the worship of his 
forefathers, and he will most probably answer that 
he has some personal objection to his parochial 
minister, that he prefers the style of singing, or the 
extemporaneous eloquence of the place which he 
frequents, and that he has had no more thought of 
asking his new teacher by what authority he dis- 
pensed the word of God and His Sacraments, than 
of demanding similar credentials from a performer 
on the stage. Even among the preachers them- 
selves, and the best informed of their number, it is 
not unusual to find individuals who are singularly 
blind to the guilt of schism, and the existence of 
the Church as a visible and regular society. Far 
from thinking communion with us unlawfiil, they 
are often ready to do ample and liberal justice to 
the purity of our creed, and the majestic forms of 
our ritual. If asked the reason of their separation 



238 SERMON XII. 

from us, it is not unusual to hear them reply, that, 
having a sincere desire to serve God in the work 
of His ministry, they applied to that religious so- 
ciety where admittance was most easy, or where 
they anticipated the most advantageous field for 
their abilities. That they regard the form of ordi- 
nation, and the persons by whom it may be confer- 
red, as a question of decency and human expedience 
only ; that every thing essential is, in fact, bestowed 
when God has given the talents and the will to 
preach the Gospel ; and that the teacher who 
faithfully proclaims the good tidings of salvation, 
and whose ministry is owned by God in the effects 
which it produces on his hearers, by whomsoever 
he may have been ordained, and whether he be or- 
dained or not, is a sound member of the Cathohc 
Church of Christ, and a legitimate labourer in His 
harvest. 

Nor can we wonder, when such opinions are so 
openly avowed and so widely disseminated, that 
the consequence should be a multiplicity of mas- 
ters beyond all which Babel itself could show ; that 
abuses take place which the well-meaning men 
whom I have mentioned are themselves among the 
first to deplore ; that a bold tongue and fluent utte- 
rance are the only requisites needful to attract 
disciples ; and that, while our hearers fluctuate as 
choice or chance shall guide them amid these va- 
rious rival establishments, the preacher, of what- 
ever sect, too late begins to discover that, instead 
of being able to give an account with joy of the 



THE DUTIES OF THE MINISTRY. 239 

Bouls committed to his care, he has been weaving 
a rope of sand, which the first adverse accident is 
sufficient to dissipate. Surely, when so many of 
our brethren round us are thus habitually regard- 
less of what we esteem most sacred; when so many 
of our own Church are shding by degrees into the 
same latitudinarian indifference, it is well worth 
our while to examine impartially the reasons al- 
leged for their neglect and our confidence ; to as- 
certain whether these solemn invocations of the 
Spirit of God be indeed no more than an empty 
show, or whether it may not be possible to con- 
vince our antagonists of the weakness of their 
grounds of defence, and the danger of their spiri- 
tual condition. 

The arguments which are generally advanced in 
defence of that conduct which I have been deplor- 
ing may be fairly reduced to the following : — 

It is contended that the right of preaching the 
Gospel and explaining the word of God is a right 
which belongs to every person to whom God has 
given the talents and the will to exercise it. " If," 
say they, " it is not our privilege only but our duty 
to give of our superabundance in worldly goods to 
the relief of our perishing brother ; if we need no 
further warrant to clothe the naked, visit the sick, 
or feed the hungry, than the perception of their 
distress, of out own ability, and of the grace of God 
which fans in our hearts the flame of charity, why 
should we seek any more definite commission than 
this to impart to others those spiritual gifts which 



240 fc^ERMON XiL 

we ourselves have received most freely? Who shall 
forbid his brother to cast out devils in the name of 
their common Master ? or, having himself experi- 
enced the power of rehgion, to declare to his fel- 
low sinners what Christ hath done for his soul, and 
exhort them to taste and see how gracious is the 
Lord who calleth them ? What, if he follow not 
with us ? Did Moses forbid Eldad and Medad to 
prophesy ?, or did he not rather express his desire 
that all the people of the Lord were gifted in like 
manner ? " St. Paul," they tell us, " rejoiced in the 
diffusion of the Gospel, though by preachers at ya- 
riance with himself, and actuated by the most un- 
worthy motives. And, therefore," they maintain, 
" not only are the hearers of such ministers as these 
abundantly justified in exercising such an option^ 
(which, indeed, is a necessary consequence if the 
ministers themselves be engaged in a work which 
God sanctions and approves,) but other preachers 
of the Gospel are bound, so long as the doctrine 
thus dehvered is unexceptionable, to regard them 
as labourers in the same good cause with them- 
selves, to rejoice in their success, and to extend to 
them the right hand of fellowship." 

Now in this chain of argument there ar,e sojjie 
very considerable fallacies : — 

It is, in the first place, by no means accurate 
reasoning to say that, because it is our duty gene- 
rally to forward the progress of Christ's kingdom 
among men, and generally to relieve to the utmost 
of our power the spiritual as well as temporal wantp 



THE DUTIES OF THE MINISTRY. 241 

of our brethren, it is, therefore, our duty or even 
our privilege to pursue these objects in whatever 
way seems to ourselves most Hkely to attain them, 
without regard to the authority of those whose ex- 
perience exceeds our own, or to the restrictions, if 
such are to be found, which the Holy Ghost has 
given us in Scripture. The privilege or even the 
obligation to do a thing in some manner may be 
allowed, but the propriety of attempting it in what- 
ever manner we please, will not be contended for by 
any who recollect that all laws, whether human or 
divine, are far less occupied in the discussion of 
general principles than in the moderation and di- 
rection of such principles to proper objects, and in 
an advantageous channel. 

Thus it is, beyond all doubt, the duty and privi- 
lege of all God's children to honour and worship 
Him to the utmost of their ability. But if any man 
should think fit to honour God by a human sacri- 
fice, or worship Him under the form of a golden 
image, we should certainly remind him that God 
had forbidden such injudicious tokens of respect? 
and that his perseverance in offering them would 
draw down a curse instead of a blessing. Again, 
it was unquestionably the duty of every Israelite to 
be zealous for the safeguard and preservation of the 
ark of the covenant and those holy relics which 
were the symbols of God's sovereignty over His 
people, and the pledges of His peculiar presence 
among them. But we find, nevertheless, the in- 
trusion of the men of Bethshemesh and the indis- 

VOh, T. 2 1^ 



242 SERMON XIL 

creet forwardness of Uzzah chastised by God Him- 
self with no less a penalty than death, though both 
the one and the other appear to have arisen from 
an anxiety laudable in itself, and of which the ap- 
phcation only was blameable. In hke manner the 
person who, in his indiscriminate zeal to give alms, 
should collect a rabble daily round his door, to the 
disturbance and terror of his industrious townsmen, 
or who, in his anxious love of justice, should usurp, 
without legal authority, the office of judge and di- 
vider of men's possessions, would plead with very 
little effect the general commandment to do "right- 
eousness and to love mercy." And till it can be 
shown that every man is a competent judge of his 
own pretensions to the ministry of Christ's Gospel, 
or that the indiscriminate assumption of the minis- 
terial character has not a natural tendency to lower 
the estimation and influence of that character, and 
to distract men's minds with the grossest doctrinal 
errors, so long it must appear that, on the grounds 
of general expediency, the person, however quali- 
fied, who takes this office on himself, is estabhshing 
a precedent hurtful to mankind, and displeasing, 
therefore, to Him who has declared Himself the 
God of order. 

For if these arguments apply to the indiscreet 
practice of all duties whatever, much more do they 
apply to an assumption of the office in question; 
inasmuch as (apparently from the very proneness 
of our nature to its abuse) there is no duty the ex- 
ercise of which is laid under so many restraints by 



THE DUTIES OF THE MINISTRY. 243 

the Author of the Sacred Volume. We no where 
in Scripture read a caution against an over for- 
wardness in alms-giving, an over diligence in 
prayer, or an over anxious attendance on the sick 
and the prisoner ; but it is, " My brethren, be not 
many masters, knowing that we shall receive the 
greater condemnation !" * They are described as 
perilous times when men, " having itching ears, 
shall heap to themselves teachers ;"t and as the 
honour of the ancient priesthood no man took unto 
himself unless he was called of God, as was Aaron, 
and as the Lord complained of the Jewish prophets, 
" I have not sent them, and yet they ran ;" J so, 
under the new covenant, no man can undertake to 
preach " unless he be sent ;" and it is for God 
alone to send into His harvest a succession of ac- 
ceptable labourers. 

Nor let it be said that in the notion of this send- 
ing, nothing more is implied than is answered by 
those abilities and that desire to serve God in the 
ministry of His Gospel, which, when real, I am ready 
to admit, are as much the gifts of God, and do as 
truly, though not so perceptibly, proceed from the 
providential government and ordinary influence of 
His Spirit, as if the rushing mighty wind of the 
same Spirit had visited our solitude, or the lambent 
flame of God's unction had designated us to His 
future service. I admit, that without such a con- 
sciousness of the talents and dispositions necessary, 
we must commit a grievous sin when we intrude 

* St. James in. 1. f 2 Tim. iv. 3. t Jer. xxiii. 21. 



244 SERMON Xlf. 

into the sacred office ; and I admit that, with this 
consciousness, where the other requisites are also 
found, we are justified, in humble hope, to believe 
ourselves called by the Holy Ghost. But besides 
this general fitness, which may be given to many, 
an outward seal and ratification is, fi-om the neces- 
sity of the case, required, both as a mark to other 
men that our services are accepted by God, and as 
an evidence to ourselves (the only sufficient evi- 
dence which can be ordinarily expected) that our 
calling is indeed from the Most High, and that we 
are not deceiving ourselves, nor deceived by our 
spiritual enemies, when we conceive ourselves 
quahfied to preach the Gospel with our mouths, 
and to adorn its profession by our practice. 

For it is well worth our while to observe that, so 
far from the will and the talent to preach conferring 
on any person a natural right to preach the Gospel, 
there were many persons possessed of both these, 
whom, nevertheless, the apostles expressly excluded 
from the public ministry. There are, doubtless, 
very many women whom God has endued with as 
eminent abihties to preach the Gospel, and we 
know there have been some who fancied as strong 
an internal call to this work as most of those men 
can profess, who, on these grounds, aspire to the 
ministry. Yet where can we find a more positive 
prohibition than that which forbids every woman, 
whatever her pretensions, to teach in the assemblies 
of the faithful ? Nor even in the case of men, and 
of men who had leceived an extraordinary commu- 
nication from the Deity, was the dehverv of their 



THE DUTIES OF THE MINISTRY. 245 

message to depend on their own choice alone, or 
on the internal impulse which actuated them. The 
spirits of the prophets themselves were commanded 
to be subject to the rules laid down by their inspired 
brethren ; they were to speak or to be silent ac- 
cording to the discretion of those who bore rule in 
the Church, and with due regard to the decencies 
of a pubhc meeting. What wonder, then, that 
some further sanction should be necessary to entitle 
men to exercise in one particular way, those natu- 
ral gifts which God may have bestowed on them for 
a different end, that zeal for His service, for which, 
if they possess their souls in patience, His Provi- 
dence may eventually discover another and a more 
advantageous channel. 

But if a further proof is required of the necessity 
of some outward and authoritative seal of God's 
appointment, in addition to those faculties and feel- 
ings which are suited to the ministerial office, such 
a proof may be found in the conduct of Him, who 
is to the Christian Church, in every age, its Guide, 
its Pattern, and its God ; when He consecrated, by 
the most solemn ordination which the world has 
seen, a few out of many disciples. We know not 
whether there were many others equally well qua- 
lified with the twelve, for the labour and authority 
of the apostleship, (one we know there was, who 
was afterwards added by the Holy Ghost Himself, 
Matthias the successor of Judas ;) but we are sure 
that if ever men were internally adapted by God's 
grace for that work, it must have been those whom 



•246 SERMON XII. 

God Himself chose, and whom He chose from a 
perfect knowledge of their hearts and tempers. Yet 
even of these men the internal fitness was not by 
itself sufficient to authorise them to go forth as 
God's ambassadors; and it was by laying on of 
hands, with fasting and earnest prayer, that the Di- 
vine Son of God thought fit to designate them as 
His servants ! Beloved, we are followers of Christ ; 
let us in this also conform to His example. 

I am noways concerned to deny that, as in cases 
of extreme public danger, every citizen is a soldier, 
so situations may be conceived, (though I am not 
aware that any such have occurred since the first 
preaching of the Gospel) in which any Christian 
may be authorised and called upon to act as a mi- 
nister of religion. Far less would I refuse to ac- 
knowledge thatmany of these self-constituted minis- 
ters, whose number I deplore, have shown a zeal in 
the service of our Lord and theirs, which may well 
call forth our admiration and our godly jealousy. 
Nor, as any religion is better than no religion at 
all, can it be doubted that much good has occasion- 
ally arisen from their ardent though unauthorised 
exertions, among those whom the labours of more 
regular ministers have been unable to reach, or to 
make impression on. But extreme and imaginary 
cases are no argument against a general rule : nor, 
though God may bring forth good out of evil, far 
more out of error and mistaken piety, is the evil or 
the error therefore justified and rendered blameless. 
St. Paul rejoiced that Christ was preached even 






THE DUTIES OF THE MINISTRY. 247 

through envy and strife; and we may find sufficient 
reason for thankfulness to God in the diffusion of 
Christianity by those whom he has not commis- 
sioned. But no man would choose to be himself 
found in the list of St. Paul's envious preachers ; 
and we are warranted, on every principle of bro- 
therly love and regard for our common rehgion, to 
call on our brethren to desist from labours from 
which more evil than good must arise, and for 
which, as we conceive, they have no sufficient au- 
thority. 

It has hitherto been my object to show the neces- 
sity which there is that the labourers in my text 
should receive their mission fi*om God in some con- 
spicuous and authoritative manner. It now re- 
mains that I should consider the manners in which 
this may take place; and I am not afraid to say that, 
neither in reason nor in Scripture, can I discover 
more than two. The first an immediate illapse of 
God's anointing Spirit, confirmed by some acknow- 
ledged and pubHc miracle ; the other an authorita- 
tive recognition of our claims, and acceptance of 
our services, by those persons, whoever they are, 
to whom God has entrusted this authority. 

In the former of these cases, and, where a man 
comes before us with the proofs of his mission in 
the broad seal and sign manual of omnipotence, it 
is certainly our part to stand still and receive, with 
that reverence which becomes us, the message of 
our Almighty Sovereign. It is our part to wish such 
a one " good luck in the name of the Lord," and 



248 SERMON XII. 

(the reality of his powers being ascertained) to ac« 
quiesce in all such of his mandates as agree with 
the analogy of faith, and the Gospel which we have 
once received. And this may seem to show how 
strangely inapplicable to the cause to which they 
have been perverted, are the passages already 
cited in Numbers xi. and Mark ix. inasmuch as 
both Eldad and Medad, and the person who cast 
out devils, were actually possessed of powers which 
were sufficient evidence of God's favour. 

It was plain that no man whom Christ had not 
chosen could work a miracle in Christ's name ; and 
when Eldad and Medad were prophets,and acknow- 
ledged as such by Moses himself, it would have been 
a strange presumption in either Moses or his friends 
to have silenced them. But for private persons, 
who can neither prophecy nor cast out devils, to 
assume a prerogative and claim a deference which 
belong to the prophet and the worker of miracles 
only, is a conduct which, though not very unusual 
in practice, is hardly a proper subject for argument 
on the present solemn occasion. 

We must return then, after all, (in ordinary cases, 
and where an immediate and supernatural commis- 
sion from the Holy Ghost is neither proved nor 
pretended), to the appointment and ordination of 
those among our fellow-creatures who exercise a 
legitimate authority in the Church of Christ, and 
who, as being appointed by God, are placed in 
God's stead, and commissioned by Him to dispense 
those graces which are necessary for the feeding of 



THE DUTIES OF THE MINISTRY. 249 

His flock, and to designate those labourers who 
are thenceforth to work in His harvest. 

And having arrived at this point of the discussion, 
even if that discussion were to proceed no farther, 
and if the Scriptures had given us no information 
as to the persons by whom this authority was to be 
exercised, the vaHdity of our ordinations would still 
be sufficiently plain, and the danger of separation 
from, or rebeUion against our Church would be 
sufficiently great and alarming; inasmuch as, where 
no distinct rehgious officer was instituted by God, 
the appointment of such officers must necessarily 
have devolved on the collective Christian Church, 
and on those supreme magistrates who, in every 
Christian country, are the recognised organs of the 
public will and wisdom. In every case alike, where 
no prior duty is opposed, " to resist the power is 
to resist the ordinance of God:"* and if Christ had 
really (as our opponents sometimes maintain He 
has done) left the form of Church government as 
undetermined as He has left the forms of civil po- 
lity, the commission of our ecclesiastical governors 
would stand on the same basis with that of our 
civil government, and disobedience to the lawful 
rule and lawful commands of either (and what is 
schism if it be not disobedience ?) would on every 
principle of common sense and Christian ethics, 
be alike a contempt not of man but of God His 
Maker. 

It happens, however, to be in our power to show 

* Rom. xiii. 2. 
VOL. I. 2 K 



250 SERMON Xlh 

(if not an explicit direction of Christ for the Ibrm 
of our Church government and the manner of ap- 
pointing our spiritual guides,) yet a precedent so 
clear, and a pattern so definite as can leave little 
doubt of the intentions of our Divine Master, or of 
the manner in which those intentions were fulfilled 
by His immediate and inspired disciples. Nor will 
the force of such precedent and example on the 
practice of succeeding Christians be regarded as 
trifling by those who consider that it is on such 
grounds as these that the obligation rests of many 
observances which are allowed by all parties to be 
essential ; among which may be classed the bap- 
tism of infants, the observance of the Lord's day. 
and our participation in the Lord's supper.* 

But, without entering into the question of the 
absolute necessity of this rule, and without judging 
those other national Churches which have departed 
from it, it is evident that those Churches are most 
wise and most fortunate who have continued in the 
path which Christ and His Apostles have trodden 
before ; and that religious insubordination is then 
most unreasonable and most dangerous, when ex- 
erted against a form of polity which the majority of 
our fellow-christians, the wisdom of our civil 
governors, and the full stream of precedent, from 
the time of the apostles themselves, combine to re- 
commend to our reverence. 

We find, accordingly, that our Lord, on His own 
departure from the world, committed, in most so- 

* See Jer. Taylor, Episcopacy asserted, sect. xix. 



THE DUTIES OF THE MINISTRY. 251 

lemn terms, the government of His Church to His 
apostles. We find these apostles, in the exercise 
of the authority thus received, appointing elders 
in every city, as dispensers of the word and the 
sacraments of religion ; and we find them also ap- 
pointing other ecclesiastical officers, who were to 
have the oversight of these elders themselves, and 
who, in addition to the powers which they enjoyed 
in common with them, had the privilege, which 
the others had not, of admitting, by the imposition 
of hands, those whom they thought fit, to the mi- 
nisterial office. 

We find the distinction between bishops and 
presbyters which is here implied, confirmed in the 
strongest terms by the ecclesiastical writers who 
come nearest to the apostolic age ; by some who 
were themselves contemporaries with the apostles ; 
by others, of undoubted learning and diligence, who 
made it their business to collect and illustrate the 
history of the primitive times; and we find it, 
above all, confirmed by the fact (which rests on as 
good foundation as the succession of the Roman 
emperors, or the earlier English kings,) that cata- 
logues of such bishops, as distinct from and superior 
to the general body of presbyters, were preserved 
in all the principal Churches of the east, fi-om the 
time of the apostles down to that of Eusebius and 
Socrates. 

And it is not too much to say, that we may chal- 
lenge those who diflfer from us to point out any 
single period at which the Church has been desti- 



•252 SERMON Xll. 

tute ot* such a body of officers, laying claim to an 
authority derived by the imposition of hands from 
the apostles themselves ; or any single instance of 
a Church without this form of government, till the 
Church of Geneva, at first from necessity, and 
afterwards from a mistaken exposition of Scripture, 
supphed the place of a single bishop by the rules 
of an ohgarchical presbytery. 

Nor is more required to prove to a candid mind, 
that, in retaining the rule of episcopal ordination, 
our Church has retained an institution sanctioned 
on the three grand rules, " quod ubique, quod sem- 
per, quod ab omnibus ;" and that, where our rulers 
thus send forth their annual supply of labourers 
into the harvest of the Lord, they send them forth 
in the same manner, by the same derivative autho- 
rity, and under the promised sanction of the same 
Eternal Spirit who sent forth Barnabas and Paul to 
the work of converting the Gentiles, and in whose 
name the latter apostle appointed Titus in Crete, 
and Timothy in Asia. 

Nor, let it be supposed that, in thus magnifying 
the grace whereby we are called, we are disposed 
to magnify our personal consequence, or to usurp 
a vain and fantastic sovereignty over that congre- 
gation of the Lord, of which, by the washing of 
regeneration, the humblest member is holy. We 
know, and God forbid that we should forget it, that 
He who sent forth His only Son not to be minis- 
tered unto but to minister, has sent us forth not as 
lords, but as servants of the faithful. We know. 



THE DUTIES OF THE MINISTRY. 253 

and God forbid that we should cease to bear in 
mind, that the more awful the source from which 
our commission is derived, the greater necessity is 
laid on us to labour dil' ently in our calling, the 
heavier woe if we neglect to preach the Gospel. 
It is God Himself who sends us forth into His har- 
vest ; it is God Himself who bids us feed His flock, 
over which the Holy Ghost hath made us overseers ; 
it is God Himself who sets us as watchmen in Israel, 
and who will exact one day a strict account of the 
souls who perish through our negligence ! And is 
this an elevating prospect ? Is this a view of things 
which can raise our opinion of ourselves ? Or shall 
we not rather, when comparing our own weakness 
with the dreadful responsibility hanging over us, 
shall we not rather cry out, as Moses cried out in 
the wilderness, " I am not able to bear all this peo- 
ple alone, because it is too heavy for me ; wherefore 
hast thou thus afflicted thy servant that thou layest 
the burthen of all this people upon him ?" * And, 
believe me, there are moments in the ministerial 
life of almost every man, when no escape could be 
found from the intolerable weight of sensations Hke 
these, if it were not in the recollection that, as God 
hath sent us, so is God our strength and sufficien- 
cy ; that, however vast the harvest, and the labour- 
ers however few, no single diligent labourer shall 
be disappointed of his final reward, and that " he 
who goeth on his way weeping and bearing pre- 
cious seed, shall doubtless return with joy bringing 
his sheaves with him !" 

* Numb. xi. 14. 11. 



254 SERMON XII. 

And that we who are already gone forth in the 
armies of the Son of God, and that they who have 
even now, in spirit, devoted themselves to His ser- 
vice, may be strong in the day of trouble, and hum- 
ble in the hour of success ; that we may be enabled 
hereafter to give a joyful account of our ministry ; 
that the Lord of the harvest may send forth a per- 
petual succession of faithful and dihgent labourers ; 
And that our Church, which, like the house of 
Recab, cleaves firmly to the institution of our fa- 
thers, may, hke that house, never want a man to 
stand before the Lord for ever, let me entreat your 
humble and earnest prayers on our behalf, on theirs, 
and on your own, to Him who is the Governor, the 
Guide, and Guardian of Christ's family ; who is to 
be sought for by faith, and whose presence, even 
unto the end of the world, is promised to His faith- 
ful ministers, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. 

To Him, with the Father and the Eternal Son, 
be, now and ever, all praise and glory ! 



SERMON XIIL 



THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THE POOR. 

/Preached before the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge? 
at St. Paul's Cathedral, in June, 1823.] 



Luke vii. 22. 
To the poor the Gospel is preached. 

It was observed by the prophet Isaiah as one of 
the principal marks by which the Messiah, when He 
came, should be known; and it was urged by our 
Lord to the disciples of St. John, as an argument 
that He was in truth that Divine Person whom the 
ancient prophets had foretold ; that the Gospel of 
Salvation, in the widest meaning of the term, with 
all its component mysteries, its accompanying les- 
sons, and its gracious consequences, was preached 
by Hinj (as He afterwards provided that it should 
be preached in His name) to the humbler orders of 
society. 

The desire of knowledge is natural to man; and 
as it is mercifully so contrived by our Maker, that 
the communication of knowledge is also, under 
ordinary circumstances, attended with pleasure, — 
it might have been, perhaps, anticipated that no 
.single religion could have laid claim to such a cir- 



256 SERMON XIII. 

cumstance as a peculiar and distinctive character ;; 
but that all sects aUke would have been anxious to 
communicate to all those arguments, by which they 
were themselves convinced; those doctrines, which 
they themselves received as sacred; and that a more 
than common care would have been expressed by 
the mighty and the wise, to impart a knowledge of 
their duty, and of those principles by which its prac- 
tice was enforced, to those on whose virtue was 
built the tranquillity of the world, while, by the dif- 
ficulties and privations to which they were exposed, 
their virtue (even more than the rest of mankind) 
might seem in danger. 

The truth however is, (and it is one, which no 
Christian can recollect without abundant gratitude 
for the far different spirit, by which his own Divine 
Teacher was animated,) that, before the coming of 
our Lord, and, at this day with very few excep- 
tions, in those countries where the light of the Gos- 
pel is as yet unknown, this duty of enlightening 
and improving the bulk of mankind was a duty of 
which the obligation was not perceived at all, or 
which, if perceived, was very imperfectly practised 
even by those, who professed themselves most con- 
cerned for the honour and welfare of the human 
race, and who had themselves obtained the least 
imperfect view of the hopes, the duties, and desti- 
nies of humanity. 

I do not only mean that the possessors of a per- 
secuted and dangerous truth were, among the 
heathen nations of antiquity, disposed to confine 



THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THE POOR. 257 

its knowledge to a few confidential disciples; I do 
not only mean that the purer deists of Greece and 
Rome had avowedly an outer and an inner school, 
of which the latter was by far the least numerous. 
The ancient philosopher, however bright his views 
might seem amid the surrounding darkness of his 
countrymen, had not that clearness of hope, nor 
that fulness of conviction, nor that assurance of the 
approbation and protection of an all-bounteous 
Master, which alone can be ordinarily sufficient to 
induce men to struggle against the madness of na- 
tions, and which, in the case of the early Christians, 
converted martyrdom into a crown. But I would 
more particularly urge on your notice, that the few 
thus selected were such, generally, as paid the high- 
est for admission ; that gratuitous instruction was, 
in few instances indeed, accorded by the moralists 
of Paganism ; that Socrates himself, (the most dis- 
interested of philosophers,) was, in point of fact 
chiefly attended by the richest and noblest of the 
youth of Athens ; and that even the religious sys- 
tems, such as they were, which were patronised by 
the state, and, on the belief of which by the multi- 
tude, the public tranquillity, the pubUc honesty, the 
sanction of oaths, and the security of every man's 
prosperity and hfe depended, were never, or in no 
effectual manner, communicated and enforced to the 
great bulk of those who, it was expected, were to 
be swayed by them. 

Of the stupendous fabrics, which, in the youth 
and vigour of superstition, the genius of abomina- 

VOL. I. 2 L 



258 SERMON Xlll. 

tion and idolatry, erected on the shores of the 
Euphrates, the Tigris, or the Nile, enough may yet 
be traced amid their ruins to inform us that the 
systems, which they were intended to uphold, 
were made up of exclusion and mystery. A long 
and painful initiation, which the man of leisure 
could alone command ; a succession of expiatory 
sacrifices, which the poor man could not supply; 
a peculiar and inconvenient habit, which the labo- 
rious man could not adopt, determined, without 
any further or more express limitation, the num- 
bers and situation in life of the Chaldean and 
Assyrian aspirants in theology. In Egypt the pro- 
fession and attainment of divine knowledge was, 
for many ages, restricted to a single tribe; and 
with how much care that priesthood concealed 
their institutes from the general eye, their conti- 
nued and almost exclusive employment of a cha- 
i'acter known to themselves alone is, in itself, a 
sufficient evidence. The Greeks and Romans 
(however communicative of other science.) in 
these respects followed the example of their Cop- 
tic and Chaldaic masters : and it is no less true 
than strange, that for the diffiision of the most ac- 
credited doctrines, for the elucidation of the most 
popular and honoured superstitions, for the persua- 
sion to the most sacred and acknowledged duties, 
it does not appear that, so far as the poor and the 
populace were concerned, any provision was made 
in the wisest republics of antiquity; or that such 
provision was supplied, in any single instance, by 



TUE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THE POOR. 259- 

the religious zeal or the enlightened benevolence 
of individuals or voluntary associations. 

The populace had their priests indeed, and sa- 
crifices, and hymns, and symbols. But the priests 
were sacrificers, not preachers ; their business was 
but to scatter incense on the flames, to bind the 
sacred garland round the victim's horns, to lead 
him to the block and to slaughter him in the me- 
thod prescribed by their ancestors. The sacrifices, 
by themselves, could afford as httle of instruction 
as of real expiation ; the hymns were often stu- 
diously muttered in an under tone, and reverentially 
couched under obscure and obsolete expressions; 
while the symbols had need to be themselves ex- 
plained, and were professedly thus explained in 
mysteries, from which the slaves and the populace 
were excluded. To these last no source of know- 
ledge remained but a few ancient poems, a few 
unauthorized and discordant traditions ; legends 
of which the wealthier and more educated classes 
hardly affected to conceal their scorn, any more 
than they did of that vulgar, whose appellation 
was synonymous with profane, and whom they 
excluded, under that name, from all participation 
in the most sacred ceremonies of their common 
religion. 

Accordingly, it was not for the poor that the 
tree of knowledge grew. The rulers and law- 
givers of the world had fenced areund its stem 
with far other guard than the sword of the an- 
cient cherubim, and repelled, with more than 



260 SERMON XIIL 

neglect their subjects and their brethren irom all 
familiarity with the topics, in which all mankind 
are the most deeply interested. Enough, it was 
apprehended, for the cause of truth, enough for 
the welfare of mankind, and that obedience in 
which their welfare consisted, that the wealthy and 
the learned should understand the nature and the 
will of the Deity ; that they alone should take their 
seats behind the scenes of the political engine, 
and, by the great pageant which they guided of 
religious mummery, of incense and idols, should 
keep in awe those multitudes, whom they cared 
not to improve, and whom they secretly dreaded to 
enhghten. 

With the Jews, indeed, the case was somewhat 
different. Concealment and mystery were altoge- 
ther abhorrent from the genius of their law, and 
from the circumstances under which that Divine 
law was originally given to their nation. Those sta- 
tutes which had reference to the conduct of every 
Israelite, and which every Israelite, as he valued 
his life, was bound to keep inviolate, every indivi- 
dual of whatever rank, (in truth the distinction of 
ranks in the ancient Israehtish repubhc was so 
shght as scarcely to influence any circumstance of 
their customs or manners,) every individual of 
whatever rank was alike enjoined to study ; while 
the few and simple principles of theology on 
which those laws depended, were proclaimed in 
thunder to the assembled multitude, and no sub- 
ject, therefore, of concealment or erudition. And. 



THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THE POOR. ^61 

111 the law of Moses itself, and still more in many- 
passages of the Psalms and the prophecies, there 
is abundant reason to believe, that those pubhc 
readings and pubhc expositions of the law (which 
Ezra revived and adapted to the circumstances of 
his people after their captivity) were coeval, or 
nearly so, with the law itself, and the sources of 
light and knowledge to the many thousands of 
Jehovah's people. 

Yet, even here, at the time of our Saviour's 
advent, had the pernicious ingenuity of man been 
busily and successfully occupied in obscuring and 
perverting that light, which they could not wholly 
intercept from their humbler brethren, in creating 
difficulties in that which was really plain, and in 
establishing a monopoly of interpretation for these 
difficulties thus fantastically brought forward. By 
their vain and unauthorized glosses, by their doc- 
trine of a double and secret sense in the most 
simple expressions of Scripture, and by their pre- 
tences to the possession of a yet more holy tradi- 
tionary code, the knowledge of which was confined 
to the scribes and the rabbins alone, these last had 
deluded their countrymen into a mysterious reve- 
rence for those arcana, into which they were not 
allowed to enter, and which in their secret schools, 
and to their select disciples only, the successors of 
Moses were accustomed, as they said, to commu- 
nicate. And, while a wild and preposterous value 
was attached to such researches; while opprobri- 
ous names were lavished on " the men of the 
earth," the " vulgar," the " unlearned," and the 



262 SERMON XIII. 

*' people that have not the law," these same doc- 
tors were so far from any readiness in imparting 
their hidden treasures, that they absolutely dis- 
couraged all study of the law itself in the majority 
of their countrymen, by declaring that a " female 
pharisee was enough to destroy the world," and 
that, (I am almost ashamed to repeat a sentiment 
so ridiculous, and so utterly detestable,) " the 
Spirit of the Lord was never known to rest on a 
poor'man." 

Far different, however, from this exclusive and 
monopolizing reserve, is the spirit of the Christian 
ReUgion. As Christ came not into the world for 
the political interest of the wealthy, or the vain 
curiosity of the wise ; as the object of His birth, 
His life. His death, and resurrection was the salva- 
tion of those many milhons of rich and poor, who 
all equally required His teaching. His help, and His 
mercy ; His coming, as the day-star, shone alike 
on all. To the hope which He brought the uni- 
versal world was heir ; and while His revelation 
may afford a never-ceasing subject of wonder and 
inquiry for the best and most cultivated under- 
standing ; while angels have desired to look into 
the mysteries of our faith, its plain and peaceful 
doctrines speak the genuine language of nature, 
who, as the common parent of all, is understood 
by the meanest of her offspring. 

Accordingly, in no single circumstance of con- 
duct did our Lord more completely differ from the 
philosophers and moralists of the heathen world, or 
from those Jewish doctors who, in His day, and since 



THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THE POOR. 263 

His return to His Father, have occupied the chair of 
Moses, than in the general pubhcity of His doctrine, 
(for ^' in secret he taught nothing ;" and those 
things, which His disciples privately inquired from 
Him, were not doctrinal but prophetic,) and in the 
especial apphcation of His words of comfort and in- 
struction to the necessities of the ignorant and the 
poor. It was to them He chiefly preached ; it was 
among them that his life was chiefly spent ; His con- 
stant attendants and familiar friends were, with few 
exceptions, chosen from among their number ; and 
He thanks His Father, in words most solemn and 
remarkable, that not so much the wise and learned 
as the babes, the ignorant of the earth, had received 
His person and appreciated His miracles. 

The diffusion, accordingly, of religious knowledge 
among the poor, as it was one main distinction of 
the mission and doctrine of our Lord, so it has con- 
tinued, from the continued necessity of the case, in 
every age of the Church, the duty of every Chris- 
tian community, and one of the most convincing 
proofs, which such a community can supply, of the 
purity of their faith, and the warmth and wisdom 
of their charity. Where this is neglected, one main 
end and object of Christ's coming into the world is 
disregarded ; the eternal interests of a great majo- 
rity of the human race are wantonly and impiously 
trifled with ; and they, whom the meek and merci- 
ful Saviour of all distinguished by a peculiar mea- 
sure of regard and tenderness, are excluded (so far 
as it is in our power to exclude them,) from the 



264 SERMON XIII. 

hopes and the graces of Christianity. Whatever, 
then, may be the outward profession of any reh- 
gious society, its doctrine, however pure, and its 
HberaUty, in other instances, however splendid ; it 
is unworthy the title of a Church of Christ, or is, 
at best, a candlestick deprived of its illuminating 
flame, if the rehgious interests of the poor are con- 
signed to chance or darkness. 

Nor is it to be supposed, as the world too often 
appears, (in its practice at least,) to take for grant- 
ed, that for such neglect, where it exists, the clergy 
are alone responsible ; or that our exertions only 
are needed in order to bring to the knowledge of 
the ignorant and the poor, the good tidings of par- 
don and grace, and the wholesome and necessary 
doctrines of repentance, and faith, and holiness. — 
God forbid, that I should detract from the tremend- 
ous obligation which, indisputably, rests on our 
order, to labour beyond all other men, and in a 
manner in which no other men are obliged and au- 
thorised, in the dissemination of religious know- 
ledge, in expounding and persuading the things of 
the kingdom of God, and, both " in season and out 
of season," in preaching this Gospel, which we have 
received, to every creature. As httle am I inclined 
to deny or undervalue the efficacy of those oral in- 
structions, (that foolishness of preaching, as the 
wise men of antiquity contemptuously called it, but 
which, ere they had ceased to despise it, they were 
by its effects compelled to fear,) by which the Gos- 
pel of Christ was, in the first instance, triumphantly 



THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THE POOR. 266 

disseminated ; by which alone, (of human means,) 
the impressions of a rehgious education may be re- 
traced or preserved indehble ; and an attendance 
on which, (when mixed with knowledge in the guide, 
and faith in the hearer,) is now, as at first it was, 
the great power of God unto salvation. But, that 
a sermon should profit, it is necessary that it should 
be heard ; it is necessary that it should be heard 
with understanding. And, when that strange re- 
luctance is considered, with which men unimbued 
with early religious impressions resort to our public 
ministry; when we take into account the awful 
and mysterious nature of many of those topics which 
we are enforced to treat upon ; when we recollect 
the shortness and paucity of those opportunities of 
attracting attention which are ordinarily in our 
power, or which the indifference and indolence of 
the world will permit us to render effectual ; can 
we wonder that something more than sermons is 
required for that mighty work which is set before 
us ? A hundred half hours in the year, (and this 
is the average amount of attention which the most 
zealous preacher can obtain in Church, and when 
the additional and weekly labours of a zealous 
minister are taken into account, even more than 
the average amount of labour which the constitu- 
tion of many preachers can support,) are surely all 
too little for the restoration of a corrupt and fallen 
race, for the institution of men into angels ! And 
the ministers of Christ have a right ; a right do 1 
say ? it is our solemn and bounden duty, in the 
vor. I. 2 M 



266 SERMON XIIL 

name of God and his Son, to call on every assist* 
ance of rank, and wealth, and knowledge, and ex- 
ample, to aid us in the gigantic task of turning the 
inhabitants of the earth to righteousness ! 

It is not, indeed, required ; it is not even to be 
desired or admitted, on the principles of Christian 
order, or of that wisest and safest form of polity, 
which the infant Church received from the inspired 
and confidential followers of her Divine Founder ; 
it is not required that the hand should usurp the 
office of the tongue ; that the laity should under- 
take the function of public preachers ; that, having 
itching ears, they should heap to themselves many 
masters, and impede and entangle, by irregular and 
unauthorised exertions, the good cause which they 
desire to forward. But, as it is the appropriate 
duty of the clergy to preach, so are the laity, on 
their part, required to furnish every requisite means 
for rendering that preaching effectual. It is their 
duty, by the maintenance of an adequate ministry, 
by the supply of sufficient and accessible places of 
worship, by private example, by public countenance, 
and above all, by the Christian education of the 
ignorant and the young, to provide that the Gospel 
be really brought to the ears of all who are inte- 
rested in its message, that for the neglect of its 
sacred lessons the sinner only may be responsible, 
and that if any are still ignorant, it at least may not 
be imputed as a national crime that they perish 
through the lack of knowledge ! 

If to see our brother hunger, and not to relieve 



THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THE POOR. 267 

his bodily wants be a violation of every principle 
which is lovely before men, and in the eyes of God"^ 
acceptable ; if at our everlasting peril we are bound, 
(so far as power is given us) to furnish them that 
need with the meat which perisheth, and the water, 
whereof if a man drinketh, he shall thirst again ; 
of how much sorer punishment must they be worthy 
who can behold the souls of their fellow-creatures 
perishing for lack of instruction without some little 
care to provide for them the bread of immortality, 
and, happy themselves in their knowledge of the 
truth, are indifferent to the destiny of those with 
whom they dwell, whose hard and daily labour mi- 
nisters to their wants and luxuries; on whose 
honesty and forbearance their own security de- 
pends, and who would repay tenfold by their love, 
their services, and their prayers, whatever lessons 
of content and holiness they receive through our 
munificence ? " Cursed be he," said God under the 
Old Testament, " cursed be he that maketh the blind 
to wander out of the way."^ And shall he escape with- 
out a still heavier malediction— shall that nation, 
shall that individual go free from the dreadful dis- 
pleasure of the Almighty, who gives over without 
compunction to the perilous wanderings of spiritual 
bhndness those unhappy persons, whose ignorance a 
little care, a Httle cost, the renunciation of a single 
expensive indulgence might have guided to light and 
everlasting happiness ? It is not, I repeat, the duty, 
it is not the interest of the clergy alone, or more 

* Deut. xxvii. 18. 



•268 SERMON XIIL 

than others, to desire the advancement of Christ's 
kingdom. For that kingdom, its coming, and final 
triumph, all believers alike are commanded by their 
Lord to pray. But to that kingdom it is an essential 
preliminary that " the earth shall be filled with the 
knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters 
cover the sea :"* nor let any of us hereafter address 
the Searcher of hearts with the petition, that His 
"•will maybe done on earth as it is in heaven," with- 
out recollecting, that on each of us it in part de- 
pends to forward that desire by our own exertions : 
and that it is a mockery of God to ask of Him, that 
sinners may be brought to repentance, while we 
contribute all the wMe, neither attention nor influ- 
ence, nor pecuniary aid, to the object for which we 
thus solemnly profess ourselves solicitous ! 

I know that it has been urged, (though, thank 
God ! the time is gone by, when the education of 
the poor was opposed on grounds of political eco- 
nomy, and when the coarse and profligate, though 
acute and fluent, Mandeville resisted those noble 
institutions, of which the fruits are now before us, 
as endangering the productive labour of the hum- 
bler ranks by educating them above their circum- 
stances) I know it has been urged that, in educating 
the poor, we give them a power of uncertain and 
even of dangerous application; that, through the 
same entrance which we throw open for the admis- 
sion of truth and holiness, the hostile forms ol 
error and of vice may enter in ; and that there is 
* Hab. ii. 14. 



THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THE POOR. 269 

reason to apprehend from the corruption of our 
nature, the seduction of novelty, and the various^ 
arts resorted to by those, who make the press their 
instrument for subverting the faith, unsetthng the 
principles, and destroying the happiness of their 
fellow-creatures, that we shall only increase the 
temptations of the poor by giving them new oppor- 
tunities of mental dissipation ; and that, while we 
shall not make any of them much wiser, we shall 
in all probability render several among them far 
more wicked. 

To all this it might be easy to answer, that it is 
vain, and worse than vain, to argue against a great 
benefit because that benefit may be abused ; and 
that there is no single blessing of the Almighty 
which may not be rendered a source of mischief 
by the folly and perverseness of His creatures. But, 
as nothing can be good, of which the probable evil 
exceeds the probable advantage, it may be more 
satisfactory to reply (and the reply is happily within 
our power) that, 

1st. The incidental dangers of education are less 
on the whole, in themselves, and of far less proba- 
ble occurrence than those which arise from a mind 
entirely unimproved, and from that lack of occu- 
pation, which, in every rank of life, must ofl:en be 
the effect of ignorance. 

2dly. That those dangers, such as they are, are 
not pecuhar to the educated man alone, but may 
exist even where education is most neglected. 

And 3dly. That the education for which we con- 
tend is not confined to the gift of reading and 



270 . SERMON XIII. 

writing alone; but is precisely of that nature, which 
is best adapted to fortify the mind against the pol- 
lution of impure suggestion and the assaults of 
impious sophistry. Even if the worst should hap- 
pen, I am not sure that the person, whom an un- 
happy course of reading seduces into infidelity, is 
in a more hopeless condition, so far as his soul is 
concerned, than the man who has scarcely learned 
the name of God at all, and certainly has never 
been taught to think of God with reverence and 
devotion; but I am sure that, for one half-educated 
deist, there are many hundreds of uneducated 
persons who, practically, and in the general habit 
of their lives are altogether without God in the 
world; and it is a question which the common sense 
of every man will find little difficulty in deciding, 
whether the possible danger of a few is to counter- 
balance the certain misery of a multitude. 

But are we really so little informed of what is 
passing around us in this vast metropolis, and in all 
the other principal seats of a condensed population 
throughout the land, as to be ignorant, that for a 
man to receive lessons in profaneness, corruption, 
and disloyalty, it is by no means necessary that he 
should first have learned to read ? Can we doubt 
that the ear is as apt a scholar as the eye for for- 
bidden things, and for false and pestilential doc- 
trines ? Do we not perceive that the least informed, 
and most neglected districts of the empire have 
been those, in truth, where the evils of which we 
complain have sprung up in the most abundant 
harvest ? Or can we hesitate to determine, that 



THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THE POOR. 271 

the best and only prevention or remedy of educa- 
tion misapplied, and of gross and brutal ignorance, 
is such an education as inclines men to love what 
is good, and *' trains up a child in the way in which 
we desire him to go," in the well-grounded confi- 
dence that, "when he is old, he will not depart 
from it."* 

Such an education it was, as I have described, (of 
which Christianity is the basis, salvation the object, 
and the words of Scripture and the rituals of our 
excellent Church the text-books and the manuals) 
which was alone contemplated by the wise and 
excellent men, whose zeal and munificence first 
adorned this city with those schools for which 
your continued patronage is now solicited. Such 
an education, (improved in its instrumental part 
by the application of that admirable system, the 
knowledge of which is, perhaps, the most illustrious 
tribute which the east has yet yielded to her 
conquerors) is that, in my opinion, which is at once 
best adapted to the nature and the wants of man- 
kind, to the religious interests of a great majority 
of the Enghsh nation, to the stability of our civil 
and rehgious institutions, to the salvation of many 
souls, and to the extension and acceleration of that 
kingdom and triumph of our Lord, our Saviour and 
our God, in the expectation of which " the whole 
creation groaneth and travaileth together."! 

There have been those — there still, perhaps, are 
some (may the Almighty turn their hearts and 

* Prov. xxii. 6. + Romans viii. 22, 



272 SERMON XIII. 

help their understandings !) who have held up the 
Enghsh Church as hostile to general education, as 
anxious to impede the march of a power which she 
viewed with jealousy, and as secretly grudging to 
the poor that light, which it was her peculiar duty 
to dispense to them. To such calumnies — un- 
founded at all times, but never more untrue than 
at the time when it was urged with greatest confi- 
dence and bitterness, — the noble spectacle now 
before you is in itself a sufficient answer. The 
effect of that spectacle I will not weaken by any 
observations on it, but I will content myself with 
reminding you that, how often and to what extent 
it shall be renewed, how many generations more 
may receive from these institutions the seeds of 
light, the habits of virtue, and the hope of immor- 
tality, must depend on you and on your bounty. 
Over the destinies of these innocent creatures now 
before you ; over the destinies of those many thou- 
sands more whom even this vast fabric could not 
contain, but who, like these, are receiving their 
education in our schools, and of whom these are 
but the representatives; over the destinies of the 
geiierations yet unborn, who may hereafter share in 
the blessings which these schools supply ; over the 
destinies of that Church, in whose principles they 
have been thus far carefully instructed ; over the 
destinies of the nation itself, which can only be 
powerful or happy through the means of an indus- 
trious and intelligent, a holy and a happy popula- 
tion; over all these, this day, a strange and amplr- 
power is siven you. 



THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THE POOR. 273 

is it your pleasure that these things should flou- 
rish, or that they should fall? I cannot doubt 
which way your desires tend : let but your con- 
duct be answerable, and, by the blessing of God? 
those desires shall receive their sure accomplish- 
ment. 

One observation more, and I have done. If we 
behold with interest and emotion the spectacle of 
so many immortal spirits assembled in the temple 
of the Lord, and receiving, as heirs of immortality, 
the blessings of religious instruction through His 
word and by His ministers ; let us remember that 
they are not the young and ignorant alone who 
have souls to be saved, and opportunities of grace 
to answer for : that, if it be desirable for the poor 
to receive the knowledge of Christ, for the rich to 
neglect that knowledge can be neither wise, nor 
safe, nor holy ; and that if it be charity to build an 
ark for our neighbour, it is madness not to enter 
into it ourselves. 

Let, then, your own practice be such as may 
show you to be in earnest in that anxiety, which 
you express for the improvement of your fellow 
creatures ; and, that your rehgion may be genuine 
and consistent, let not your prayers be confined to 
this place alone, but in the solitude of your closets, 
and in the circles of your families, no less than in 
the sanctuary and before the altar of the Most 
High, call down the blessing of the Holy Ghost on 
the instructions here afforded, and the benefactions 
here bestowed, in His name and through his me- 

VOL. I. 2 N 



274 SERMOiSI XIII. 

diation, who once in great humility came down to 
preach His Gospel to the poor, and who once again^ 
on His return in might and majesty to judge both 
quick and dead amid the flames of an expiring 
world, and amid the glories of an open Heaven^ 
will not disdain, at His Father's right hand, to call 
the poor His " brethren !" 



SERMON XIV 



RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 

"Preached at the Assizes at Shrewsbury, 1821.] 



Jeremiah xxxv. 18, 19. 

Because ye have obeyed the commandment of Jonadah your 
father, and kept all his precepts, and done according unto 
all that he hath commanded you, therefore thus saith the 
Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel ; Jonadah the son of Re- 
chab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever. 

On the persons to whom this memorahle promise 
was made, and on the circumstances under which 
they received it, a very few observations will be 
sufficient. It was made to a small Arab tribe, 
whose ancient name of Kenite had, in the days of 
Jeremiah, given place to that of Rechabites ; who 
were connected by long friendship and the memory 
of ancient services with the nations of Judah and 
Israel; and who, though sojourners in a land of 
vineyards and corn-fields, and surrounded by a 
people of agricultural and commercial habits, re- 
tained, through many centuries, the simple man- 
ners of their Cushite ancestry, their abstemious 
diet, their pastoral hfe, and their aversion to settled 
habitations. They drank, we are told, no wine 



2v6 SERMON XIV. 

neither built houses, nor sowed seed, nor planted 
vineyards, but all'their lives they dwelt in tents in 
the land in which they were strangers. 

On account of this adherence to their ancient 
institutions, the Rechabites were held up by the 
Almighty, as may be seen in this same chapter of 
Jeremiah, as a contrast to the fickle caprice and 
restless spirit of innovation by which His own peo- 
ple, the Jews, were so often led astray from the 
ordinances which He Himself had given to them. 
And, as if to add more weight to the example thus 
offered, and as a contrast to that menace of political 
ruin which he had denounced against the monar- 
chy of Judah, the assurance which I have taken in 
my text was given to the house of Rechab, that 
their family should be preserved amid the common 
ruin of Syria ; and that the ancestor whose precepts 
they had so well observed, should not want a de- 
scendant to " stand before the Lord for ever." 

That this promise, thus solemnly and explicitly 
made, has received its exact fulfilment, we have 
very reasonable grounds to believe, not only from 
the respect due to the inspired authority of Jere- 
miah, but from every thing which is known con- 
cerning the manners and pohcy of those tribes which 
yet wander over the open country of Syria. In our 
present limited knowledge of those regions, we are 
unable, indeed, to fix with precision on any one 
particular clan as the descendants of the ancient 
Kenites. But many clans there are, and always 
have been, who, from policy and preference at least 



RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY'. 277 

as much as necessity, retain in those wild regions 
the habits described by the prophet. The use of 
tents would be no distinguishing mark among the 
wandering hordes of the desert ; and the imposter 
Mahomet, in forbidding the use of fermented 
liquors, did no more than comply with a prejudice 
already universal not only among the Rechabites , 
but among all the children of Nebaioth, Kedar, and 
Midian. And it is but reasonable to believe that, 
though the distinction may have been lost by the 
feature becoming general, and though the ancient 
name of the tribe and the memory of their descent 
may, perhaps, have perished amid the lapse of 
years and the political revolutions of Asia, yet the 
word thus spoken by God has not been suffered to 
fall to the ground, and that the wanderers of the 
house of Rechab may still continue to prosper un- 
der the blessing of the Most High, and to cherish 
amid their wilderness the institutions of their an- 
cestor Jonadab.* 

*At the distance of 2500 years from the date of the prediction 
a tribe bearing the name, and answering to the description of the 
Rechabites, has been discovered in Arabia. Several notices of 
them occur in the missionary journals of the Rev. Joseph 
AVolfT, published some years after the date of this sermon. 
Writing at Mousoul, he thus speaks of them: "March 19, 
1824: all the Jews in this countiy believe that the Beni Khaibr, 
near Mecca and Medina, are the descendants of the ancient 
Rechabites, The mufti from Merdeen gave me a long de- 
scription of the Beni Khaibr ; but as I have not yet seen them, I 
will not at present give you his description of them. They are, 
however, worthy of notice. Those Jews of Khaibr gave infinite 



278 SERMON XI V. 

But obscure as their present fate may be, and 
little as the indefinite prolongation of an obscure 

trouble to Mohammed; and he never was able to compel them to 
embrace his religion. See Sale's note to chap, xlviii. in the Ko- 
ran, and Herbelot Bibliotheque Orientale." Journal [Lond. 
1828,] vol. ii. p. 276. In another passage of the same work, 
(p. 331,) he says, "The Jews of Sanaa are firmly convinced that 
the BeniKhaibr are the descendants of the ancient Rechabites." 
Again, at a later date, and in a different place, he says : " Nov. 
27, 1824. Abraham ben Yahya confirmed the account I had 
before received of the Rechabites. When I asked him, Do you 
know the Jews Khaibr? He replied, ' You mean the children of 
Rechab. These are mighty men, and have not felt the yoke of 
the captivity.' And then Abraham ben Yahya joyfully lifted up 
his fingers, and moved them about, and said, ' They are the de- 
scendants of Jonadab the son of Rechab, who said, Ye shall drink 
no wine, neither ye, nor your sons for ever ; neither shall ye build 
houses, nor sow seed, <Sz;c.; and thus they do. The children of 
Ishmael curse them, and we bless them. The sword of Moham- 
med has not brought them under his yoke, &;c.'" (Journal of 
the Rev. Jos. Wolff, in Jewish Expos. 1826, p. 315.) The full- 
est and most striking passage is the following : " All the Jews, 
not only of Jerusalem, but likewise those of Yemen, told me, that 
the Rechabites mentioned in Jeremiah xxxv. were still existing 
around Mecca; the Mussulmans who performed their pilgrimages 
to Mecca, confirmed that account : the latter knew them by the 
name of Khaibaree. On my arrival at Jalooka in Mesopotamia, 
I saw Jews wandering about among the Yezidi. I asked them. 
Has never any one of you turned Yezidi, or Mussulman ? They 
replied, * Oppression cannot bow us, and tyranny cannot shake. 
Hear, Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, ^ I added, 'And 
Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God !' And believing them to be 
Rechabites, on account of their wandering about in the desert, I 
asked them the question : they replied, No, but here is one who 
<"ame from Hajaz, i. e. the deserts of Mecca !' I saw one before 



RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 279 

and humble pedigree (though a promise admirably 
adapted to Arab prejudices) would affect or interest 
a modern European, the few circumstances which, 
in the present chapter, we are told concerning 
them, are of a nature by no means unworthy of 
our serious attention, and conduct to consequences 
not only curious and important in themselves, but 
such as are peculiarly appropriate to the present 
times, and to the occasion which has called us to- 
gether. 

It is, in the first place, as I conceive, apparent 
that, in the promise here made to the Rechabites 
by God's prophet and in God's name, and under 

me standing, dressed; and wild like an Arab, the bridle of his 
horse holding m his hand : I showed to him the Bible in Hebrew 
and Arabic ; be read both languages, and was rejoiced to see the 
Bible. He was not acquainted with the New Testament. After 
having proclaimed to him the tidings of salvation, and made to 
him a present of the Hebrew and Arabic Bibles and Testaments, 
I asked him, Whose descendant are you ? Mousa (this was his 
name, — with a loud voice) come, I show to you, and then he be- 
gan to read Jeremiah xxxv. from ver. 5 to 11. Wolff. Where do 
you reside ? Mousa, (recurring to Gen. x. 27) at Hadoram, now 
called Samar by the Arabs, at Usal, now called Sanaa by the 
Arabs, and (Gen. x. 30) at Mesha, now called Mecca, in the de- 
serts around those places. We drink no wine, and plant no vine- 
yard, and sow no seed, and live in tents, as Jonadab our father 
commanded us. Hobab was our father too ; come to us, you will 
still find 60,000 in number, and you see thus the prophecy has 
been fulfilled, ' Therefore thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God 
of Israel, Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to 
stand before me for ever.' And sajang this, Mousa, the Recha- 
bite mounted his horse and fled away, and left behind a host ot 
evidence of sacred writ." Journal, vol. ii. p. 333 — 5. Ed. 



280 SERMON XIV. 

His immediate direction, an approbation of their 
conduct is implied, of which that promise was, in 
fact, the appropriate reward and sanction, and such 
a sanction and such a reward as were in the power 
of God only to bestow, and as He unquestionably 
would not bestow but on those whom he was, for 
good reasons, disposed to favour. 

True it is that the common experience of ages* 
(and what is this experience but the ascertained 
and usual manner in which the Almighty directs 
the fortune of His creatures ?) the experience of 
ages teaches us that, Avhere the institutions of any 
society are not easily changed, that society is most 
likely to be of permanent use and prosperous con- 
tinuance. And if the prophet had said no more 
than that the modesty of the Rechabites and their 
reverence for their ancient laws would be found 
their best security for the independence and pros- 
perity of their little republic, he would have said 
no more than was warranted by^ the usual maxims 
of human wisdom ; though the assurance might, 
beyond a doubt, have acquired additional strength 
and importance as proceeding, in this instance, 
from an inspired monitor. 

But the assurance which Jeremiah gave them 
was of a nature far more definite than if it had ex- 
tended only to that general and ordinary protection, 
which all communities, whose affairs are conducted 
with wisdom and integrity, have reason to expect 
from God's providence. It was tlic promise of a 
blessing which cannot be ranked among the natu- 



RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY, 281 

ral effects of any human institution, however wisely 
ordained and however pertinaciously observed ; a 
promise of continued fruitfulness to a numerous 
tribe, of continued endurance to a particular nation, 
not for a few generations only, but so long as the 
world itself should exist ; " Jonadab the son of 
Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me 
for ever." 

And when we consider that this privilege, than 
which, to Arabian ears, a greater could hardly be 
given, was conferred as a reward for the faithful 
and persevering observance of institutions, such as 
I have described to you, is it possible that we 
should fail to notice the reverence which this ex- 
ample teaches for the laws of man's appointment, 
not only for such as are visibly and immediately 
conducive to God's glory and the happiness of 
mankind, but for such as, in themselves indifferent, 
derive their whole sanction and obligation from the 
authority of the person from whom they are derived, 
or from the sacredness of ancient and universal 
custom ? The promise, it will be observed, though 
of the same general character, is in its apphcation 
widely different from that which, in the fifth com- 
mandment, is held out to those who honour the 
direct and intimate ties of blood, and the injunc- 
tions of a Uving parent. The person from whom 
the Rechabites derived the institution or revival of 
their pecuhar laws, though, according to the forms 
of eastern language, he is called their father, was 
in truth an ancestor, and a remote one, of a small 

VOL, I. 2 



282 SERMON XIV. 

part only among their number. Upwards of two 
hundred years had passed away since their chief 
or patriarch Jonadab had been courted and con- 
cihated by Jehu : and it must have been as sove- 
reign, not as parent, that he could have possessed 
so extensive an influence over a tribe which, six 
hundred years before, and in the days of Moses. 
was already numerous and important. The obser- 
vances, too, which he had enjoined were, in them- 
selves, of no moral or religious obligation. They 
had reference to the usual economy and separate 
polity of his tribe, and possessed no more of posi- 
tive importance than the fashion in which a man 
should wear his hair, or the colour and form of his 
garment. Yet the Rechabites kept them ; and, for 
thus keeping them, they are praised and rewarded .» 
and it follows, therefore, that an obedience to the 
laws, as laws, and abstracted from any other con- 
sideration, is a duty incumbent on men, and a con- 
duct well pleasing to him from whom all civil 
government derives its beginning and authority. 

A distinction has, indeed been made, and made 
by moraUsts of no common renown, between the 
obligation to laws in their own nature useful and 
necessary, and to those positive institutions which 
derive their sanction from the will of a human supe- 
rior only. The first is admitted to rest on the im- 
mutable principles of justice and duty, and to bind 
the subject not only for wrath but for conscience 
sake ; while the second is supposed to imply no more 
Than the necessity of submitting, if detected, peace- 



RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 283 

ably and without evasion, to whatever penahy the 
state has thought fit to impose. Thus a perpe> 
tration of the graver offences against society is ac- 
knowledged, on all hands, to be not only illegal 
but wicked, is not only to be punished by temporal 
inflictions, but is liable to the censures of con- 
science, and the burning wrath of the Most High ; 
while, to give a familiar example, the old statute of 
burying in woollen would have been held by 
these morahsts to have been optional to follow or 
to transgress by any man who chose to run the 
risk of the penalty. 

Between the cases which I have compared, and 
in all other comparisons of the same kind, there is 
certainly a great and awful interval : and I am 
ready to admit that, wherever a moral law and a 
positive institution are at variance ; wherever the 
observance of this last is inconsistent with the per- 
formance of a higher duty ; wherever its transgres- 
sion is necessary to produce a preponderant good 
to the community, to our neighbor and, in certain 
cases, to ourselves; wherever its observance has 
become obsolete, and its breach connived at and 
universal ; the conscience of the individual is by no 
means bound to keep the law, and may even, ac- 
cording to the greatness of the exigency, be abso- 
lutely bound to violate it. It was thus that the 
Rechabites themselves appear to have acted, w^hen, 
as we read in this same chapter, during the time 
of the Assyrian invasion, they sought the general 
safety of their community by a temporary aban- 



'284 8ERMON XIV. 

donment of their Arabian habits, and by forsaking 
their tents for the houses and ramparts oP Jem* 
salem. 

It is the same indeed, in a greater or less degree, 
with every positive institution, whether human or 
Divine. Where a moral duty or a visible necessity 
interferes, the Almighty, we learn from Scripture 
itself, " will have mercy and not sacrifice ;"*' but 
where a trifling inconvenience only can be pre- 
tended, or when the real reason of our disobedience 
is no other than an impatience of lawful authority, 
1 can certainly find no ground, either in reason or 
in Scripture, for thus limiting the conscientious 
obligation of laws to those laws only, of which we 
can at once perceive the excellence and propriety. 
Sure I am that no such distinction is made in the 
various texts of Holy Writ which enjoin the Chris- 
tian to " submit himself to every ordinance of man 
for the Lord's sake;"t or which remind us, as a 
general truth, that whoso resisteth the regular au- 
thorities of his country shall receive unto himself 
damnation. 

The truth is that there are very few laws indeed, 
(perhaps if I had said none, I should have run 
little risk of refutation,) of which the institution or 
the continuance has not been grounded in the 
abatement of some evil or the attainment of some 
advantage. And if no other advantage is gained 
than that of accustoming mankind to restraint, and 

* St. Matt. ix. in. t St. Peter ii. 13, Rom, xiii. ^. 



i 



RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 285 

educating in their minds the habits of deference for 
Aeir rulers in things indifferent, even this advan- 
tage will be greater than any which can ordinarily 
arise from a breach of the law, even if we waive all 
consideration of the evil which may follow from our 
setting an example of disobedience in trifles, and 
weakening, so far as our influence extends, the po« 
pular reverence for the institutions of our country. 
The conscientious duty, then, incumbent on 
every individual, to yield obedience in things indif- 
ferent, and to the institutions of that society to 
which he belongs, is the first of those lessons which 
I am desirous of impressing on your notice from 
the example of the Rechabites, and the blessing 
which they received from the Almighty. 

A second consideration arising from the same 
history, and a consideration of still wider import- 
ance, which applies not only to individuals and 
subjects, but to the nations of which those indivi- 
duals are a part, and the governors to whom those 
subjects owe obedience, is the veneration which it 
seems to inculcate for ancient and established 
forms, and the adherence to those national institu- 
tions, the utility or harmlessness of which has 
stood the test of ages, and the authority of which 
is built on the associations of early youth, and the 
transmitted recollections of those to whom our 
childhood looked up with aflfection. They were 
not the individual shepherds alone, with whom Je- 
remiah held this conversation, but their collective 
body, and the authorities of their clan, to whom 



286' SERMON XIV: 

the blessing of Jehovah was pronounced for then- 
adherence to the commandments and customs of 
their Arabian ancestry. 

Is the present time unseasonable ; do the cir- 
cumstances of the world around us seem to render 
the task unnecessary of urging such a consideration 
on the reason and conscience of mankind ? or are 
we not rather called upon by all which we have 
hitherto enjoyed, and all which we can apprehend 
in future, by our regard for the temporal and eter- 
nal interests of our brethren, and by our reverence 
for that Holy Name in which kings reign, and 
princes decree justice, to correct, so far as possible, 
that overweening contempt for whatever is ancient 
or estabhshed which manifests itself in the popular 
discourses, the popular writings, the popular actions 
of our day; to exorcise that evil spirit of change 
which no longer walks in darkness ; and to entreat 
the world to have mercy on itself ere it proceeds to 
destroy or damage some of the noblest fabrics 
which the wisdom of former ages has left behind? 

While I lament, however, the increase of this 
feeling in the minds of my countrymen, I am by no 
means inclined to attribute its prevalence to any 
national fickleness of character, or to any causes 
but those external circumstances of privation and 
disappointment which have afforded, in the suffer- 
ings of the many, a field but too propitious for the 
malignant exertions of the few. 

In spite, indeed, of all those maxims of ancient 
wisdom, which complain of the desire of novelty as 



I 



RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 287 

a natural and inherent principle in the human 
mind; in spite of the gratification which vanity re- 
ceives by a supposed emancipation from the tram- 
mels of authority, and the readiness often exhibited 
by the half learned and the half wise in the adop- 
tion of new and untried suggestions, I am inclined 
to beheve that the love of novelty, by itself and 
simply considered, has by no means so great an 
influence over mankind as to overcome, in ordi- 
nary circumstances, the countervailing principle of 
imitation, or that mockery and disHke by which 
innovation is always, in the first instance, more or 
less attended. This very persecution, indeed, is 
in itself a demonstration that mankind, in general, 
like not to have their opinions or habits disturbed; 
and that it is only to minds of a peculiar construc- 
tion, and already accustomed to turn their thoughts 
in many different directions, that the stimulus of 
novelty, abstractedly considered, is pleasing. And 
the fact is as certain as it is remarkable, that the 
history of the world suppHes no instance of any 
great or extensive innovation which has not been, 
in the first instance opposed by a vast weight of 
prejudice, or which, when it has triumphed, has 
not triumphed by slow degrees, and afi;er a violent 
and tedious struggle. 

So forcibly, indeed, have many men been im- 
pressed by this phenomenon, that they have called 
on us to discard entirely as, if not hurtful, at least 
unnecessary, those cautions against an innovating 
spirit, in which former ages have dealt so largely ; 



288 SERMON XIV. 

to exhort them to judge for themselves, and by the 
Hght of then* own reason, without regard to what 
others have thought or estabhshed before them; 
to recollect that what we call antiquity was, in fact, 
the youth of the world, and that in experience and 
in information we are ourselves wonderfully supe- 
rior to those ages whence our principal institutions 
are derived ; and which we have been taught to 
regard with something like superstitous veneration. 
as hallowed by the wisdom of our ancestors. 

Would these reasoners maintain that innovation 
is in itself a blessing ? Are they blind to the con- 
sequences by which the progress of even the most 
beneficial change, provided that change is exten- 
sive, is inevitably and calamitously attended ? 
Surely, with these before our eyes and in our re- 
cent memories, it is allowable to plead for some 
degree of caution and discretion in the abatement 
of even acknowledged abuses, when we recollect 
that every opinion and every institution is, in pro- 
portion to its antiquity and importance, connected 
with the prosperity of thousands ; that none such 
can be erased without disturbing the entire soil 
where it grows, or without those indications of 
agony which hke the screams of the fabled man- 
drake, involve too often the destroyer and the 
destroyed in one common and deadly ruin ! 

But the caution, they will tell us is, unneces- 
sary, inasmuch as the natural bias and disposition 
of mankind is not so much in favour of novelty as 
of precedent ; and the danger, therefore, will be 



KESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 289 

not so much that unnecessary change will be sought 
for as that needful reformation will be resisted. 
And so far as the natural bias of the human mind 
is concerned, it is probable that they are not mis- 
taken. But it would argue an extremely partial 
and imperfect view of human nature to overlook 
the fact, that propensities, even though not inherent, 
may accidentally become habitual and dominant, 
or to be bhnd to the degree in which the feeling in 
question may be generated and pampered by ex- 
ternal causes. 

Of innovation, for its own sake, I have already 
allowed that the mind of man is seldom naturally 
desirous. Nor, even when innovation promises to 
effect an addition to our present happiness, are 
those who are already happy, much disposed to try 
experiments. But amid the many calamities to 
which our earthly condition is liable, as it is natu- 
ral for the wretched to seek relief, so they are in- 
clined to seek it in attempts which at another time 
they would have regarded as idle or troublesome, 
as the sick man turns from side to side on his un- 
easy bed, and anticipates from every change of 
posture a lighter and less galling misery. And 
under the pressure of public and national calami- 
ties, however distinct the source of those calamities 
may be from any civil or religious institution, yet it 
almost uniformly happens that, as these institutions 
take up a great space in the popular eye, and as, of 
all the circumstances by which we are surrounded, 
these are they which seem most capable of altera- 

VOL. I. 2 P 



290 SERMON XIV, 

tion, the anger of the sufferers is, in the first in- 
stance, directed against their rulers or their laws ; 
and, instead of attempting to remedy the real cause 
of the distemper, or of acquiescing with patience 
in a distemper which can be remedied by Provi- 
dence alone, they overturn one system after ano- 
ther, in failure of their producing that perfect 
happiness which no political system can produce : 
till, wearied with often choosing, and always meet- 
ing with disappointment, men renounce the power 
of choice at once and for ever, and conclude the 
wild race of anarchy with the iron sleep of military 
despotism. It is not, then, against the reason but 
against the passion of mankind, not against the 
even and regular current of their disposition, but 
against that dispositon when lashed into fiiry by 
the storms of adversity, that we would uphold this 
vampire of honest and useful prejudice, which pre- 
sumes that what is is right, till something better 
can be found, which throws the burthen of proofs 
on the proposers of innovation, and demands a very 
plain evidence of necessity and a very strong pro- 
bability of success before we proceed to throw 
down, in the prospect of raising a new and untried 
shelter, those roofs and towers which so well de- 
fended our ancestors in the hour of danger. 

Nor, when we thus introduce the mention of our 
ancestors, is it necessary to suppose that we ascribe 
any unreasonable sanctity to their characters, or 
any wisdom more than human to their decisions^ 
We only maintain that which we are fully justified 



RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 291 

in maintaining, that the institutions which they 
have left us have stood the test both of their expe- 
rience and the experience of intervening ages ; that, 
supposing them to have had the same natural abi- 
lities, the same natural prudence with their de- 
scendants, we must suppose that their institutions 
were, in the first instance intended to produce 
some expected good, or to remedy some known 
evil ; and that of their wisdom we have a right to 
entertain at least as good an opinion as of those 
ingenious persons who propose a departure from 
their decisions. 

Nor, when so much is said of the world having 
gained in experience, can I omit observing that we 
shall adopt a very unphilosophical mode of speak- 
ing, if we talk of the present generation as if it were 
really in possession of all the accumulated prece- 
dents of former ages, or as if we could be really so 
much wiser than our ancestors as we are later in 
succession than they. They are the exact sciences 
alone which are capable of this progressive and 
endless improvement. The moral and political wis- 
dom of mankind are restrained within far narrower 
limits ; and their leading wants and interests are, in 
every generation, so nearly the same, that more is, 
in such points, to be expected from the experience 
of age and practical intercourse with the world, 
than from any knowledge which books can supply, 
even if, which is by no means the case, the study 
of history inclined men to a fondness for untried 
theories.. 



292 SERMON XIV. 

If, indeed, we investigate a little more closely 
the nature of those feelings which usually operate 
to make men fond of innovation, we shall find them 
such as are most unfavourable to calm inquiry, or 
to that modesty and moderation by which alone 
the experience of past ages can be brought into 
action, and on which alone the hope of practical 
advantage can be founded. The impatience of 
personal distress, the malignity of suppressed am- 
bition, the youthful ardour which looks beyond all 
obstacles, the vanity which is blind to any conse- 
quences beyond a little present notoriety, and the 
servile spirit which binds every faction to follow 
in the train of their leader, these are the ordinary 
enemies against which the supporters of established 
institutions have to contend. And when we con- 
sider how unfavourable such dispositions as these 
which I have described must be, not only to the 
happiness of mankind in general, but more imme- 
diately to a Christian and sanctified spirit in the 
individuals who entertain them, we can hardly won- 
der that the introduction of new customs, or the 
unnecessary departure from ancient customs, are 
severely stigmatized in the oracles of Him who is 
the God of order and harmony. 

Nor must it be supposed that, in thus pleading 
for established institutions as a general principle, I 
am pleading on the side of slavery, or in opposition 
to whatever moderate and necessary innovations 
may be required in every fabric of human con- 
struction, from the lapse of ages or the violence of 



RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 293 

previous innovators. The caution with w^hich I 
would deprecate unnecessary change will apply to 
the governors as well as to the governed, to the 
encroachment of power as well as to the impa- 
tience of popular feeling. The innovating ruler is 
at once more foolish and more wicked than the 
innovating demagogue ; more foolish, inasmuch as 
he risks more ; more wicked, inasmuch as more is 
confided to him. And the prejudiced advocate of 
ancient abuse, and the pertinacious enemy of ob- 
vious and easy improvement should remember, that 
the true friend of an establishment is not he who 
conceals, but he who seeks to remedy its imper- 
fections ; and that to cause the ruin of a fabric, no 
way is so certain as to refuse our consent to timely 
and practicable repairs. 

But we iiave a right to demand that such imper- 
fections should not be fancied where they do not 
exist, nor exaggerated when they are really found, 
by the mahgnity of popular invective, or by an ap- 
peal to popular passion. We have a right to de- 
mand that the good and evil of a system should be 
impartially weighed ; that more should not be al- 
tered than necessity requires, or than may be done 
with safety ; and that the time at which, and the 
persons by whom, the alteration is proposed should 
both be considered with anxious vigilance before 
we admit of tampering with that in which the hap- 
piness of thousands is so deeply interested. And 
as, by the confession of all sides, unnecessary in- 
novation is a great and serious evil, we are justified 



294 SERMON XIV. 

in maintaining, as a general principle to which* 
before they actually arise, it is by no means neces- 
sary to suppose exceptions, that whatever is esta- 
blished has, at least, a prima facie claim to our 
support and reverence, and that the citizens of a 
Christian nation will be ordinarily slow to alter 
their ancient laws and form of government, re- 
membering the prophet Jeremiah's reproof of those 
who forsake their old ways for new ; the blessing 
which the same prophet pronounced on the Re- 
chabites for an adherence to the customs of their 
forefathers, and the emphatic caution of the pro- 
phet Solomon, " My son, fear thou the Lord and 
the king ; and meddle not with them that are given 
to change."* 

Yet one observation more, and I have done. If 
the Rechabites were thus blessed for the reverence 
which they showed to the institutions of a mortal 
lawgiver ; if to the customs and forms of human 
origin, to the dictates of earthly wisdom, or to the 
accidental results of time and circumstance ; if to 
these so much of sanctity belongs, how much holier 
the obligation, how much greater the blessedness 
of a sincere and hearty obedience to those rules of 
conduct which have been given by God Himself, 
those words of hfe and salvation which at the first 
began to be spoken by His Son, the Holy Ghost 
through all the prophets bearing witness thereto 
from the beginning ? This was the primary use 

* Prov. xxiv. 21. 



RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 295 

which God Himself made of the customs of the 
Rechabites, this the especial and immediate end 
for which He urged their example on the Jews ; 
and I should ill discharge the duty of my profession 
if I suffered you to depart from this holy place with- 
out earnestly and faithfully entreating you to lay to 
your consciences, that in this respect also it may 
well become you to adhere to the institutions of 
your ancestors, and to follow their piety towards 
God as well as their allegiance towards the king, 
and their reverence for the laws of their country. 
In this most loyal county, and to an audience 
whose hereditary recollections, whose hereditary 
influence, whose ancient and honest prejudices are 
all on the side of the laws, I may have perhaps ex- 
posed myself to the charge of giving needless coun- 
sel, when I have pleaded the cause of ancient insti- 
tutions. But let those who partake in this honest 
zeal for the continuance of our paternal inheritance 
of freedom and security, remember that unless the 
laws of God are reverenced, those of man cannot 
long preserve their weight, and that it is in vain 
for the higher ranks to expect reverence from 
those beneath them, if their own conduct displays 
an habitual disregard of the duties of rehgion. It 
is a strange and awful responsibility which, in the 
complicated machine of society, belongs to those 
men who are placed (as every magistrate is placed, 
and as is the case with every man of landed pro- 
perty and hereditary influence) in the situation of 
chiefs aniong their people, and as points of imita- 



296 SERMON XIV. 

tion and attention to a large surrounding circle. It is 
from their households that the neighbouring village 
takes its tone ; it is from their apparent reverence 
for God, from the attention bestowed by them on 
the duties of their station and the welfare of those 
beneath them, that their servants, their tenantry, 
and the poor are chiefly guided to an opinion fa- 
vourable or otherwise, of the laws under which 
they Uve, and the authorities which they are called 
on to reverence ; and, if such men desire the per- 
petuity of the English constitution, it behoves them 
to recollect that they are its best supporters who 
sedulously perform the part (a very distinguished 
and important part) which that constitution assigns 
them. 

But why should I thus confine myself to secular 
and temporary motives in enforcing that line of 
conduct which a more awful consideration renders 
necessary ? The institutions of man, the best and 
wisest institutions, must at length fade away be- 
neath the breath of time, or be crushed by the 
hand of violence. The dying prayer of Sarpi was 
but a fruitless and presumptuous aspiration, and 
the fall of our own beloved country, as of his 
wealthy Venice, must one day^ prove the vanity of 
the patriot's " Esto perpetua." 

But the hour must come, and to many of us is 
fast approaching, when even the fate of our coun- 
try will be a secondary consideration to us all, and 
when the rank which each has held in it will be 
of infinitely little importance, except so far as each 



RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. 297 

may be enabled to render with gladness an account 
of his own conduct before that tribunal of which 
the occasion on which we are now assembled, is a 
dim and imperfect shadow. 

Let it not, for God's sake, for our soul's sake, 
and as our everlasting happiness is dear to us, let 
it not be said in that day that we have been zealous 
for the commandments of men, and have omitted 
the weightier considerations of a more pure and 
holy Lawgiver. Let us not leave occasion to the 
Judge of Heaven and earth to complain that the 
idle customs of society, the indifferent regulations 
of human polity, have obtained from us that respect 
which we did not afford to the holy laws, the rea- 
sonable service of our Maker, our Redeemer, and 
Sanctifier. " The statutes of Omri are kept, the 
words of Jonadab the son of Rechab are performed 
notwithstanding I, saith the Lord, have spoken unto 
you, but ye hearkened not unto me."* 

May He who hath framed us, forgive our former 
provocations ; and that we may hereafter find de- 
light in His word ; and render obedience to His 
commandments, may he govern and guide our 
hearts with the sanctifying graces of His Holy 
Spirit, through the merits of that blessed Son, 
who was Himself, as man, the perfect pattern of 
obedience and hohness ! 

* Micah vi. 16. Jerem. xxxv. 14. 



vol,. I. 2 Q 



SERMON XV. 



ON THE SHIPWRECK OF ST. PAUL, 
[Preached at Lincoln's Inn, 1822, and at Madras, 12th March, 1826.] 



Acts xxvii. 23, 24. 

There stood by me this night, the Angel of God^ whose I am, 
and whom I serve, saying. Fear not Paul, thou must he 
. brought before Ccesar, and lo, God hath given thee all them 
that sail with thee. 

These words are taken from one of the most re- 
markable passages in the hfe of the Apostle of the 
Gentiles, of which the incidents are as interesting 
as the doctrine which depends on them is impor- 
tant. A vessel bound from Crete to Italy in the 
stormy season of the year, and crowded with sol- 
diers and passengers to the number of two hundred 
and seventy-six persons, had been tossed for many 
days on the bosom of a tempestuous sea, without 
the guidance of sun or stars, without tackling to 
direct her course, and almost a helpless wreck on 
the water. " All hope that we should be saved," 
we are told by one who was himself a passenger, 
" all hope that we should be saved, was then taken 
away."* But there was on board that ship an 
aged and a holy man, a prisoner carried in chains 
to Rome, whither he had appealed for judgment 

^ Ver. 20. 



THE SHIPWRECK OF ST. PAUL. 299 

from the envy of his countrymen. The same, while 
they were yet in harbour, had warned the crew 
of their approaching danger, and entreated them 
to defer till a calmer month, their ill-timed and 
unfortunate voyage. But now that the evil which 
he then foresaw had really fallen on them, he again 
came forward, not to reproach their former un- 
belief, or to join with them in vain lamentations 
for a calamity which could not then be avoided, 
but like that fabled meteor which the superstition 
of the heathen world had made the mariner's idol, 
he came forward to revive their hopes and stimu- 
late their exertions, by the assurance that their 
lives were secure. Gently reminding them of his 
having foretold this calamity, that the truth of his 
former prediction might conciliate their attention 
and belief to that which he now delivered ; " I ex- 
hort you," saith he, "to be of good cheer, for 
there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, 
but of the ship. For there stood by me this night, 
the Angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve^ 
saying, Fear not Paul, thou must be brought before 
CsBsar, and lo, God hath given thee all them that 
sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer 
for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was' 
told me." 

The remainder of the history may be briefly re- 
lated. They beheved his words, they followed his 
directions, and though their vessel was dashed to 
pieces on the rocky shores of Mehta, every soul on 
board was rescued from the devouring waves. 



300 . SERMON XV. 

Among the many considerations which this his^ 
tory suggests to the mind, considerations of rever* 
ence for the mercy and the power of that God 
whose paths are in the sea, and who thus, by the 
preservation of many hves, was pleased to glorify 
His chosen servant in the presence of the heathen, 
there is one, which, if not so obvious as the rest, is 
at least, of equal practical utility ; the benefits, I 
mean, which holiness bestows not only on the chil- 
dren of God themselves, but on all who are even 
incidentally connected with them. It is not Lot 
alone who is rescued from the devoted city; his 
daughters, his wife, his sons-in-law have all, for his 
sake, the same merciful offer of deliverance. It is 
not Joseph only who becomes a prosperous man, 
and with whose daily toil the Lord is present to 
bless and prosper it; his Egyptian master finds 
his goods increased for the sake of his Hebrew 
bondman. It is not Elijah only who is miraculously 
nourished during the famine ; his Sidonian hostess 
also has her barrel of meal and her cruise of oil pro- 
longed, and herself and her child preserved from 
perishing. It is not St. Paul alone, the chosen 
vessel of the Lord, and the appointed ambassador 
of the truth to the shores of the western ocean ; it 
is not St. Paul alone, nor his comrades St. Luke 
and Timothy, nor the courteous centurion, whose 
discerning kindness to his prisoner might have 
operated as some little claim to snatch him from 
the general calamity ; the selfish mariners and the 
brutal soldiery are moreover given by God to the 



THE SHIPWRECK OF ST. PAUL, 301 

prayers and services of His apostle; two hundred 
three score and fifteen persons are preserved from 
death by the presence of a single captive ; and the 
vain-glorious boast of the Roman, Ccesarum vehis^ 
was reahzed in the instance of St. Paul. 

So closely united, indeed, and linked together 
are mankind, both in their welfare and in their suf- 
fering, that a great dehverance can hardly, in the 
common course of things, be wrought for one in- 
dividual without his fellows also partaking in it. 
Not even the hand of an angel could eradicate the 
tares of this world without injuring the wheat 
which grows among them; and the wheat, accord- 
ing to the common dispensation of God's mercy, 
cannot receive its needfiil nourishment of dews 
and sunshine without an equal share in those ad- 
vantages being accorded to the weed and the bram- 
ble. But, though even this acknowledged truth 
would be sufficient to prove the advantages which 
the righteous man confers on all in his immediate 
vicinity, yet does the history now under considera- 
tion afford a case far stronger than that of an inci- 
dental share in a general benefit. The protection 
here extended, was more abundant, by far, than 
was necessary for the preservation, or even the 
prosperity of the apostle. St. Paul might have 
been saved, though all the crew besides had been 
left to the mercy of the elements, and as the pre- 
servation of the latter was thus (according to the 
literal meaning of the word x«^'T^<^^aj) gratuitous, 
so was the Divine interposition by so much the 



302 SERMON XV. 

more conspicuous in proportion to the number of 
persons saved, and the helpless condition of, pro- 
bably, the greater part of them. 

It would have been, in like manner, extremely 
possible to have given Joseph favour in his master's 
eyes without blessing that master's store with a 
providential increase and prosperity; and the ravens 
might have still continued to bring food to Elijah 
while the widow of Zarephath had baked her last 
cake and died. 

On the whole, then, it is fair to conclude, from 
the uniformity which is apparent in these several 
dispensations of Providence, and from the obvious 
tendency of, by far, the greater number, that in 
cases of this kind something more is intended than 
the mere preservation or even comfort of the one 
favoured person ; and that, as a pious example is 
of such value to the world, God is pleased by His 
blessing and protection even in earthly affairs, to 
add weight and influence to His children, by making 
them, in a conspicuous manner. His instruments 
for good to all around them ; by rendering their 
society and neighbourhood a source of safety as 
well as of honour ; and all those who touch, if the 
allusion may be allowed, though it were but the 
hem of their garment, partakers of transmitted 
blessing. 

And this will be strongly confirmed if we ob- 
serve that the contrary is also strictly true ; and 
tliat God by frequently punishing not only the 
wicked themselves, but those who are connected 



THE SHIPWRECK OF ST. PAUL. 303 

with them, appears to stamp that connexion with 
danger as well as with infamy, and to draw, by the 
severest judgments, a line of demarcation between 
His children and the perilous and contagious society 
of sin. It is thus that the children of God, if they 
" dwell in the infected tents of Kedar," if they fly 
for shelter like Johanan and his followers, into the 
cities of Egypt,* are often themselves involved in 
the snare which was laid for another, and reap in 
their own ruin the bitter fruits of their companions' 
wickedness. What sorrows did Lot endure, right- 
eous as he was himself, from his choice of an 
accursed neighbourhood ; what bitter reason had 
he to lament the hour which beheld him first 
as a sojourner among the men of the plain, when 
he was carried with them into captivity by the As- 
syrians, or when he hardly escaped from their final 
destruction with the death of half his family, and 
the deep corruption of its surviving members. 
When Ahaziah joined himself with Joram, and Je- 
hoshaphat became the ally of Ahab, how surely did 
the sins of the wicked king endanger or destroy his 
misguided, though less guilty companion, and how 
dreadful was the presence of Jonah, the fiigitive 
firom God, which brought down the storms of 
Heaven on the vessel and mariners who received 
him.t Nor is this all ; the sins of the fathers are 
said in the second commandment to be visited by 

* Psalm cxx. 5. Jer. xliii. 7. 
t Gen. xiv. 12. 2 Kings ix. 21—27. 2 Chron. xx. 37. Jonah i. 



304 SERMON XV. 

God on the children ; and the sins of the prince 
were in a conspicuous manner visited on the nation 
whom he governed, when David was moved by Sa- 
tan to give command for the numbering of Israel* 
That God is unrighteous in such terrible displays 
of His power will hardly, I think, be pretended by 
those who consider that, as examples to the rest of 
mankind, such punishments have an obvious ten- 
dency to answer the purposes of mercy ; that as 
all are sinners, there is no one who can plead that 
the punishment which overtakes him is undeserved, 
though it may be that such punishment would not 
have overtaken him, unless the wisdom of the Most 
High had been pecuharly called on by the sins of his 
more guilty connexions ; that, lastly, the Allwise 
and Almighty may so distinguish in His fiercest 
judgments, as that, while the cup of His anger is 
drunk by all concerned, its dregs may be reserved 
as the peculiar portion of the principal offender. 
Where the connexion with a wicked person is vo- 
luntary and presumptuous, that connexion is, in- 
deed, in itself a sin, and deserving of a share in his 
punishment ; but in every case and in every imagi- 
nable progressive shade of general guilt or inno- 
cence, we may well trust to God that His ways in 
this state of probation are no less righteous than 
they will be hereafter in a future and retributive 
life ; that, though the mysteries of His Providence 
are impenetrable to mortal eyes. His truth shall be 

' 1 Chron. xxi. 1. 



THE SHIPWRECK OF ST. PAUL. 305 

made plain, in His good time, to our faith and gra- 
titude ; and that though " clouds and darkness are" 
at present " round about him," yet " righteousness 
and judgment are the habitation of His throne for 
ever."* 

Nor can it be maintained with reason that these 
awful dispensations were confined to the peculiar 
case of that people, which the Almighty distin- 
guished as His own by an almost visible adminis- 
tration of their government, and by a distribution, 
in the present life, of those rewards and punish- 
ments which are ordinarily reserved for a future 
state of existence. For, though it is certain that 
the views of a Christian are not hmited to temporal 
recompences, and that we have no reason to anti- 
cipate an exact distribution of happiness or misery 
in the present life, according to our good or evil 
deportment, yet is it by no means true that the 
dispensation of temporal rewards or punishments 
was at any time confined to the tribes of Israel, or 
that since the Mosaic covenant passed away, such 
a dispensation has been altogether abandoned by 
the Almighty. The calamities of Sodom, of Tyre, 
of Nineveh, of Egypt, of Babylon, were as strictly 
judicial as those with which God visited Jerusalem 
or Samaria ; even under the Gospel a sentence of 
extermination hangs over those religionists who re- 
sort to the temporal sword; the oppressions of 
Antichrist are (if the words of prophecy be at all 
intelligible) to be punished even in this world with 

* Psalm xcvii. 2. 
VOL. I. *> R 



306 SERMON XV, 

signal plagues and misery ; and to individuals, dis- 
eases and death have been, we know from the tes- 
timony of an apostle, the righteous chastisement 
of a profanation of the Eucharist.* 

And though it be, doubtless, an impious pre- 
sumption in our present state of ignorance to de- 
cide what instances of public or private calamity 
either are or are not judicial, it is certain that the 
universal feeling and universal experience of man- 
kind have borne witness to the fact that, even in 
this world, there is retribution, and that the arm of 
God has been, in certain instances, made bare 
against conspicuous acts of impiety, or bloodshed, 
or oppression. Nor, when we add to these more 
rare and awful dispensations those usual and fami- 
har cases in which poverty, disease, and shame, 
are stationed in the gate of indulgence, to deter 
with their pallid aspect the unwary from entering 
in, and to execute some portion of God's righteous 
vengeance on those who have braved His terrors, 
can we avoid acknowledging that godliness is great 
riches, as well in this life as in the life to come ; 
and that the path of the wicked is even here beset 
with snares, and his cup a cup of trembling. But, 
if the power of God be thus actively employed in 
the temporal punishment of His enemies, it is also 
certain that it is not with the Jews alone that this 
punishment has been so ordained as to include 
others besides the offender. In the instances which 

" 1 Cor. XI. 30. 



THE SHIPWRECK OF ST. PAUL. 307 

I have already named, it cannot be said that those 
persons who Hved before the law was given were 
dealt -with in conformity to any peculiar provision 
of the law, and the same doctrine is notoriously 
applied to the children of God after the cessation 
of the Mosaic covenant in those several prophecies 
of the New Testament, where the worshippers of 
God are exhorted to fly from Jerusalem and Baby- 
lon, lest, by tarrying, they become partakers in their 
plagues.* 

But even in private life, and in the occurrences 
of every day, how often do we behold the conse- 
quences of sin extending to all who have the mis- 
fortune to be connected with the offender. I do 
not mean that ships are lost because they have an 
atheist on board, or that a roof is rendered unsafe 
to the fellow-lodgers of the impious ; but in those 
dispensations which we call natural, though to a 
Christian they are no less providential than the 
most awful wonders of Almighty power, how many 
families are made miserable by the consequences 
of a father's vice ; how many friends lament their 
careless intimacy with the ungodly ; and how con- 
stantly does experience enforce the admonition of 
Moses, " Depart I pray you from the tents of these 
wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye 
be consumed in all their sins."t 

No less sure, though perhaps less observed, is 
the beneficial effect extending from the religious 

* Rev. xviii. 4. t Numb. xvi. 26. 



308 SERMOK XV. 

man to his friends, his children, and his neighbour- 
hood. That we less frequently behold these fa- 
vourable interpositions of Providence than tliose 
by which the associates of the wicked are chas- 
tized or consumed, may be ascribed both to the 
greater scarcity of real holiness in the world, and, 
still more, to the circumstance that the mercies and 
blessings of Providence, as they are more abun- 
dantly given, are, therefore, less noticed than His 
awful and exemplary exhibitions of justice. But. 
if that secret machinery by which He guides the 
world were disclosed, and those springs laid bare 
which, however small in themselves, supply the 
most important uses, and contribute, far more than 
rare and remarkable occurrences, to the well-being 
of the world and its inhabitants ; how many fami- 
lies might we find made prosperous and happy by 
the virtues of one among their number ; how much 
of health and strength and peace of mind derived 
from such single fountains ; or (if our views were 
still farther enlarged to the concerns of larger so- 
cieties,) how often should we, perhaps, behold the 
fruitfulness of the earth increased, and the exist- 
ence of nations continued by the secret prayers 
and undiscovered influence of those good men, 
who, though the world hath overlooked them, are 
beheld by God with pleasure ; who, like Job, are 
examples of His grace to other worlds, and, like 
Elias, allowed to intercede for the continuance of 
His blessings to their own ! 

There is a striking legend in the Koran, that the 



THE SHIPWRECK OF ST. PAUL. 309 

Lord delayed to bring the waters of the flood over 
the world, till Methuselah was gathered in peace 
to his fathers ; but, to leave such fables, we know 
from the Lord's own authority, that the sorrows of 
the latter days are to be shortened by Him "■ for 
the elect's sake whom He hath chosen."* And can 
there be a stronger inducement to endeavour so to 
rule our hearts before God as that our lives and 
prayers may please Him, than the persuasion that 
by acting thus we shall not only serve ourselves, 
but our family, our friends, our neighbours, perhaps 
our country ? Or can the sinner have a greater 
aggravation of his criminahty or his misery, than 
the recollection of how many may be condemned 
on his account, to mourn; how much of wretched- 
ness his crimes may entail on those whom he most 
tenderly loves, or how the addition of those crimes 
to the weight of the common guilt may accelerate 
the ruin of his people.'^ Were not the sins of 
Achan and the accursed treasure in his tent, suffi- 
cient to turn back in flight the thousands of Israel .^^f 
And who is there who shall pronounce with confi- 
dence that the mischief of his offences shall termi- 
nate with himself, or that they may not be, in this 
world, in a terrible manner required at the hands 
of others ? 

Or, secondly, can we be too cautious what inti- 
macies we form, and with whom, since we find such 
important results follow from a good or evil choice 

*= Mark xiii. 20. t Joshua vii. 11, 12, 



310 iSERMON XV. 

of friends? For, is it not most extraordinary, that 
while every other circumstance is attended to in 
our connexions with mankind, while temper and 
understanding are essential requisites in a friend; 
while the trader will not unite himself with a part- 
ner or correspondent of whose circumstances or 
diligence he is not well informed, the Christian will 
not scruple to form the closest ties with those whose 
characters he must know, if he inquires into them 
at all, are dangerous to' themselves and all around 
them ? Yet surely such connexions are naturally 
best adapted for the comfort and happiness of either 
party, in which not only temper and understand- 
ing, but principles jointly accord, in which the 
associates may not only take sweet counsel together^ 
but walk to the house of God in company ? " Be 
ye not unequally yoked together with unbeliev- 
ers,"* is a caution of which the prudence is evident 
and between unbelief explicit and implied, between 
the profession of impious principle and the habitual 
practice of such actions as put our better principles 
to shame, the difference is so small that it is hardly 
worth discussing. 

Nor are such connexions only hkely to disap- 
point us from those circumstances of dissention and 
dispute, to which a disparity of principles may be 
reasonably expected to give occasion. They are, 
in themselves and in the first instance, for the most 
part, deficient in the necessary warmth and earn- 

* 2 Cor. vi. 14. 



THE SHIPWRECK OF ST. PAUL. 311 

estness. The good-will of the wicked must want 
that living spark of love which alone is really supe- 
rior to chance or change, which grieves for our 
faults without despising us ; which helps our mis- 
fortunes without insulting us ; which bears our in- 
firmities without flattering us; which hopeth all 
things, believeth all things, endureth all things. 
Other bonds may be convenient; they may be 
agreeable ; they may for a time be strong ; but 
their strength is hke those Arabian brooks which 
are rivers now, and now thorny valleys. " What 
time they wax warm they vanish; when it is hot 
they are consumed out of their place. The troops 
of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited 
for them ; they were confounded because they had 
hoped ; they came thither, and were ashamed."* 
But, further, if we suppose such connexions as I 
have spoken of to be maintained in this world with 
mutual and unaltered affection, yet how dreadful 
is the prospect which they hold out of parting in a 
few years for ever. When those in whom our soul 
delighteth are hidden from our sight in the grave ; 
when those eyes are closed which have rested on 
us with affection, and that hand is stiffened and 
grown cold which was wont to answer kindly to our 
pressure, though we are not without hope, a sure 
and certain hope, of rejoining them to part no 
more, we are by our present loss compelled, like 
our Divine Master at the grave of Lazarus, to shed 

* Job vi, 17, 19, 20 



312 SERMON XV. 

tears of natural sorrow. But when to this misery 
of parting at all, the fear is superadded that our 
parting may be eternal, and that those whom we 
have loved are condemned to everlasting fire, how 
intense and intolerable is our agony ! And, surely, 
if there be any grief which is allowed to linger 
with the souls of just men made perfect ; if any 
tear still hangs on their eyes, it must be when they 
vainly seek in Heaven for those friends with whom 
they have sojourned below, or behold them, in the 
day of judgment, among the multitude on the left 
hand ! 

But, fourthly, it is not only on account of our 
vicious friends themselves that we may, perhaps, 
have cause to mourn. So perilous is the bad ex- 
ample of those whom we love and reverence, that 
we are fortunate, indeed, more fortunate than we 
have any reason to anticipate, if we do not ourselves 
receive infection. I do not mean that we are of 
necessity to fall iito those more conspicuous vices 
which, even in a ^'iend, disgust and alarm us. This 
may be, indeed, f d will be far oftener the case 
with us than we are apt to flatter ourselves ; but 
this is not our only, nor, perhaps, our principal 
danger. For, though our practice be less openly 
offensive to God and good men than theirs, it is 
certain that, by associating with them, we lend to 
their vices the additional influence of our own more 
decent example ; while every excess which we coun- 
tenance by our presence, and every licentious ex- 
pression at which we smile, are adding to the weight 



THE SHIPWRECK OP ST* PAUL. 313 

of that account which we must one day yield to 
God, and treasuring up sorrow and fear against the 
hour of death and the day of judgment. " Be not 
deceived," is the language of reason as well as of 
revelation ; " evil communications corrupt good 
manners ;"* and next to maintaining a good exam- 
ple ourselves, there is no caution more sacred or 
^ more necessary than that we should also choose 
our friends and companions from those whose ex- 
ample is good. 

I know it will be answered that this is not always 
in our power ; that our situation in life, the simila- 
rity of studies, the equality of years, the recollec- 
tions of youth, the ties of blood, the circumstances 
of neighbourhood, for the most part determine our 
acquaintance for us ; and so far as mere acquaint- 
ance reaches, the observation is strictly true. But 
though it is allowed by St. Paul that, so long as we 
live in the world, we must frequently form acquaint- 
ance with irreligious characters, and though the 
Scriptures by no means require us to go out of the 
world to avoid them, yet between this necessary 
intercourse, and friendship or, even, famiharity, 
the distinction is great indeed. And, in general, if 
we ourselves are of a conversation consistently 
blameless and holy, we shall find the irrehgious of 
their own accord sufficiently disposed to shun our 
society, or, if they really take pleasure in our com- 
pany, it will be a sign, and a very hopeful one 

* 1 <Jor. XV. 33. 
VOL. I. 2 S 



:n4 SERMON XY. 

that their characters are by proper means reclaim- 
able. 

But while we shun all intimacy with those whose 
contact, we fear, may defile us, it is a matter of 
rehgious prudence no less than of rational enjoy- 
ment, to supply the place of wordly and dangerous 
friendships by drawing nearer to those of whom 
the lives and examples are likely to benefit us, who 
may supply by their stronger prayers the weakness 
and unworthiness of our own ; whose spirits, like 
guardian angels, may plead our cause, and watch 
over our safety, and whose society, as it has been 
on earth our protection, may be a portion of our 
reward in Heaven. 

And, wherever our intimacies are already formed, 
whether among the enemies or the friends of God^ 
it is a duty which we owe to them, to our Maker, 
and to ourselves, to employ our best endeavours 
to correct whatever is amiss in their principles or 
conduct, and to confirm and strengthen them in 
the paths which lead to salvation. For this pur- 
pose a double watch should be kept over the doors 
of our lips, lest we ourselves say any thing, or as- 
sent to any thing said by others which may encou- 
rage them in sin, or slacken their exertions in the 
cause of God and goodness. I do not mean to 
recommend an affected solemnity of manner, or 
that, when we are ourselves converted, we should 
give our intimates occasion to suspect that we have 
cast off* all aff'ection for them. On the contrary, 
we have an additional reason for avoiding all pe- 



THE SHIPWRECK OF ST. PAUL. 315 

culiarities which may make rehgion offensive or 
ridiculous, and for being more anxious than ever, 
by kindness, by courtesy, by compHance in things 
lawful or indifferent, and by postponing, where we 
safely may, our pleasures and tastes to theirs, to 
prove to them that our love is not changed but 
subhmed and purified, and that rehgion is so far 
from chilling the natural affections, that it must 
needs, when sincere, make men better kindred, and 
better neighbours, and better friends. But in the 
mean time we should not for a moment lose sight 
of the truth, that there is nothing by which our 
influence over the minds of others is so much weak- 
ened as by inconsistency and irresolution ; that to 
cast ourselves away can be to our erring friends no 
possible advantage ; and that, whether they repent 
or perish, it behoves us. at least, to escape with our 
lives and not to look behind us. And to maintain 
our friendships in this wise and happy tempera- 
ment, I know no better course than that of de- 
voting them to God by the diligent practice of 
what is, in itself, the most essential duty of a friend, 
a frequent intercession in the behalf of our friends 
at the throne of grace and mercy. Nor can we, as 
I conceive, be seriously impressed with either the 
value of a friend, or the powerful efficacy of prayer 
to preserve that friend to our love and draw down 
on him the blessing of our common Father, with- 
out sometimes recollecting his name in those mo- 
ments when our hearts are most warmed by their 
nearer approach to the source of all love and ho- 



3U) SERMON XV. 

liness, and uniting an earnest wish for his salvation 
to those entreaties which we offer for our own. 

We have indeed, no reason for hoping that our 
tardy devotions can open the gates of Heaven for 
a sinner whose day of grace is faded into darkness, 
and who has gone to his account in unbehef and 
final impenitence ; but of those who yet live, it is 
hard to decide who have absolutely " sinned unto 
death," and we are still less able to determine how 
often the devotions of the faithful have obtained 
for those, whose case was most to be despaired of, 
a fresh and efficacious visit from the Spirit of Grace 
and Comfort, and a little further respite to recover 
their strength before they departed hence and were 
no more seen. 

It was a memorable saying of Ambrose to the 
mother of Augustin, when she lamented to him the 
indisposition which her son at that time displayed 
to all rehgious feeling: "I have never known the 
son allowed to perish for whose soul so many 
prayers and holy tears interceded." Nor when we 
hear, in like manner, complaints from parents and 
teachers, of education of example and of entreaty 
thrown away on the levity and stubbornness of 
those whose hearts they have desired to soften and 
ameliorate, can we avoid sometimes suspecting that 
their pains might have had a happier effect if His 
help had been duly sought for who only giveth the 
increase either to the earthly or spiritual husband- 
man. 

Nor need we fear that, while thus interceding 



THE SHIPWRECK OF ST. PAUL. 317 

for our brethren, we shall presume too far on the 
mercy and patience of God, or that we shall neg- 
lect our own interests while we are earnest on be- 
half of others. To the intercession which I recom- 
mend we are induced by those numerous passages 
of Scripture which not only encourage but com- 
mand us to offer prayers, as for all men gene- 
rally, so especially for those to whom we most owe 
love and reverence. To such an intercession we 
are encouraged by the successful example of those 
worthies of ancient time whose devotions could 
snatch men from shipwreck, from disease, from 
death, and from sin ; and who had power, by their 
supphcations, to change the course of nature, and 
to bring rain and fruitfulness on those lands which 
the sins of the inhabitants had rendered barren. 
To such an intercession we are emboldened, above 
all, by that example which we are in all things at 
humble distance bound to follow, the example of 
Him who came down on earth that His blameless 
obedience might withdraw the curse from His cre- 
ation, and who, even now, at His Father's right 
hand, is occupied as the advocate of His brethren! 
And be sure that all they who in their secret 
thoughts display such real anxiety for the happi- 
ness of their fellow-creatures, have an intercessor 
in Christ who will never cease to care for them ; 
that " with the same measure w^hich they employ 
it shall be measured to them again," and that the 
mercy and the spiritual help which they implore 
God to grant to their neighbours shall be, with a 



318 JSERMON XV. 

larger and more bounteous hand, -returned into 
their own bosoms !* 

It is the duty then, or, to speak more properly, 
it is the blessed and glorious privilege of every 
Christian to be busied in prayer for all whom he 
loves or pities. But, while we thus call down on 
their heads all temporal and spiritual benefits, and 
while we pray for ourselves that our example may 
be such as to become, through God's grace, the 
source to them of blessing and salvation, let us 
always conclude with the request that, however 
strong our earthly regards may be, they may never 
overpower the love which we owe to our God, our 
Maker, and Redeemer ! 

He is, after all, the great and only Friend on 
whose love, under all possible circumstances, our 
hope may surely rely ; whom no slander can de- 
ceive, no vain resentment sever from us ; whose 
favours are abundant beyond our boldest desires, 
and who, when most justly offended, is more ready 
to forgive than we to ask forgiveness. The time 
must shortly arrive when all earthly friendships 
will become less than nothing in comparison with 
His favour; and when we shall find, if we have 
not ourselves cast it away, that " no height, nor 
depth, nor any other creature shall be able to 
separate us from the love of God which is in Christ 
Jesus our Lord."t 

When we are tossed by the storms which our 

* Matt. vii. 2. t Romans viii. 39. 



THE SHIPWRECK OF ST. PaH. 319 

own rashness has incurred, He is near at hand, Uke 
the Apostle, to support and strengthen us. If we 
follow His directions, He gives us the means and 
assurance of safety, and His mighty intercession 
can rescue His miserable creatures from a gulf of 
destruction more dreadful than that deep which 
yawned beneath the Cretan mariners ! 

To Him, therefore, with the Father and the Holy 
Spirit, be all obedience shown, and all praise and 
glory given, now and for ever ! 



SERMON XVL 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 

[Preached before the University of Oxford, 1818 ; at Lincoln's Inn, 
1322; and at Madras, 1826.] 



Phil. i.21. 
To die is gain. 



To cure mankind of the fear of death is what 
the wisest men of the ancient world have, ac- 
cording to the different degrees of their imperfect 
knowledge, in various ways attempted to accom- 
plish. It is among the principal and most blessed 
effects which (according to the author of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews,) were to follow from the humiUa- 
tion of God's Son to our mortal nature ;* and how 
truly and perfectly it was produced in the case of 
St. Paul, is apparent from the text I have chosen. 
As, then, the value of the cure may be appreciated 
from the eagerness with which it has been sought, 
and its possibihty demonstrated from the example 
of those who have attained it, it may be useful and 
interesting to inquire how much had been effected 

* Heb. ii. 15. 



¥ 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 321 



towards this great end by unassisted reason or an- 
cient tradition ; what further aids the religion of 
Christ suppHes ; what men those are whom Chris- 
tianity encourages to look forward with hope be- 
yond the grave ; in what manner that hope may 
best be kindled and kept alive in us, and in what 
manner it may be expressed most fitly. 

I have said that to subdue the fear of death was 
the favourite object of heathen wisdom, and the 
point to which the sages of the ancient world most 
earnestly directed their labours. There have been 
some, indeed, both in ancient and modern times, 
who, instead of suggesting considerations whereby 
death, before it came, might be contemplated with 
less of horror, and, when it came, endured more 
easily, have been content to advise us to avoid the 
subject as much as possible, to shift the melan- 
choly scene whenever it came in view, and to drive 
from our thoughts, by considerations of an oppo- 
site tendency, an event which, come when it may, 
is beyond our control and remedy. 

But those persons have been greatly ignorant of 
the temper of the human mind and the constitution 
of things around them, who did not recollect with 
what a strange and mechanical impulse the soul 
reverts the most to those ideas from which she is 
most anxious to escape, or who did not perceive 
that all nature is too closely filled with hints of our 
mortality to sufier the melancholy truth to fade 
away from our remembrancCc Should we admit 
the possibility of effacing from the mind by 

VOL. I. 2 T 



322 SEKMOiNF XVI. 

pleasure, or by business, the traces of what we are, 
and whither our journey leads us, yet the recol- 
lection is sure to return when this fever of the 
spirits has subsided, and to return with greater 
strength and dressed in more dismal colours. We 
cannot study, we cannot feast, we cannot dance 
always ; and the blithest and the busiest of us all 
will have enough of time in his hours of sickness or 
inactivity to mourn over the shortness of his earthly 
day, and to tremble at the darkness which is to 
follow. But this is not all. For, the idea of death 
having once possessed the soul, it is by no means 
so easily expelled as these miserable comforters 
imagine. It will sometimes follow us into the midst 
of the densest crowd, and mingle its hideous aspect 
with whatever pictures of ambition, or of indul- 
gence, our most active fancy can assemble ; it will 
make our cup bitter ; it will strew our bed with 
thorns, and whisper to us in the midst of our mirth 
with a voice of most dismal moaning. 

" Linquenda teilus et domus et placens 
Uxor, neque harum, quas colis, arborum, 
Te, praeter invisas cupressus, 
Ulla brevem dominum sequetur!* 

This truth is confessed by the tenor of those very 
counsels by which the votaries of vice and luxury 
have enticed us to acquiesce in such pleasures as 
they were able to supply, and to shut our eyes against 

"■ Hor. 0(l. (J. xiv. 21. 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 323 

their approaching termination. Why else are we 
so repeatedly exhorted to " talk not of fate but 
to talk of odours and wine :" to " pry not into the 
Babylonian computations," to " recollect that the 
main evil of death Hes in its apprehension ?" Why 
is this very shortness of life so continually insisted 
on as an argument that we should " eat and drink 
while life remains to us," unless the mirth of the 
voluptuary is, indeed, mingled with heaviness, and 
is, perhaps, therefore chiefly valued by him as a 
contrast with the gloom which nature presents 
on every side, and which throws its shadow over 
every circumstance of his present pursuits or 
pleasures ? There is no need of the suspended 
sword of Damocles to scare him in his hours of 
merriment, while the roses which wither on his 
brow, and the cries of the mourners in the streets, 
and the familiar faces which pass away from around 
his table, all teach him that the hopes of earth are 
nothing else than vanity, and that " there is no 
counsel, nor device, nor wisdom in the grave whi- 
ther he goeth." 

Since, then, to lose the thought of death is im- 
possible, it only remains to make that thought, by' 
some means, less intolerable. And this has been 
attempted through many different suggestions, of 
which the greater part have only served to show 
the weakness and inconsistency of those by whom 
they were brought forward. Some have attempted 
to support us under this last visitation of our mor- 
tal nature by reminding us that it is, in our case. 



324 SEHMON XVI. 

no more than all the rest of the world have suf- 
fered or must suffer ; that Scipio, and Caesar, and 
Alexander have passed to the same silent dwelling ; 
that " Abraham is dead, and the prophets are 
dead,"* and that it, therefore, ill becomes us to re- 
pine that death should be our portion also. " Ad 
banc legem natus es : hoc patri tuo accidit, hoc 
matri, hoc majoribus, hoc omnibus ante te, hoc 
omnibus post te. Quantus le populus moriturorum 
sequetur, quantus comitabitur !"t 

But this is a mere jargon, and " multiplying of 
words without knowledge," by which, though the 
voice of complaint may have been often awed into 
silence, as, indeed, it is by this sole principle of 
the resistless force of fate, and the utter inutility 
of resistance, that the inhabitants of India go 
down to the grave with so much external compo- 
sure, yet the inward bitterness of death never was 
and never will be alleviated. If I am to lose a 
limb to-morrow, I shall not feel less pain in the 
operation because my neighbour has, some years 
since, had the same performed on him; nor is 
death at all the less misfortune, so far as I am con- 
cerned, because it is a calamity to which all others 
are also liable. 

Those heathen writers suppose themselves to 
have succeeded better, who endeavoured to fortify 
us against the fear of death by representing death 
as privation only ; as a long sleep without a dream ; 

* St. John X. 53. -f Senec. Epis. Ixxvji. 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 325 

the end of all our hopes, and fears, and feelings. 
" That," said Epicurus, " which when present is 
nothing, is no cause of affliction when anticipated." 
''Death, which is to other men the greatest of 
evils, and the most terrible, is to us nothing; 
inasmuch as, when we exist, death is not, and 
where death is, we exist not. Death, therefore, is 
literally nothing, since, where death is, there is 
nobody."* 

It is strange how much the followers of the 
school of atheism appear to have prided themselves 
on this foohsh quibble, but it is stranger still to 
find, in modern times, and with lights so infinitely 
superior, some writers speaking of annihilation as an 
event of absolute indifference. For, first, this very 
description of death (if it were indeed true, that 
death were a total and eternal cessation of thought 
and feeling) is so far from being a comfortable or 
tolerable prospect, that it is one opposed to all the 
instincts of our nature, and which the generality of 
mankind, even of those who possess least in this 
present world, regard with the utmost horror. The 
possessor of little is seldom, on that account, less 
attached to what is in his possession. There are, 
comparatively, few so wretched in this present life 
as not to prefer existence in their actual state to 
not existing at all; and still fewer are there, who do 
not, so long as they live, entertain some memory of 
past or some expectation of future happiness, which, 

* Diog. Laertius Vit. Philos. x, Cic. Tusc. Quest, i. 



326 SERMON XVI. 

vain as the first may seem, and delusive as the 
second may be fomid, are not to be without a pang 
abandoned entirely and for ever. We knov^r the 
declaration of the philosophic Msecenas, who pro- 
fessed to prefer to death a hfe of all imaginable 
misery,* and to such a lover of existence it is a 
wretched encouragement indeed, to console him 
under his loss by an assurance that the loss will be 
total. But this is not the worst, for it is plain that 
the knowledge that we ourselves are mortal is not 
the only, perhaps not the principal way in which 
our lives are embittered by the recollection of mor- 
tality. Man is not made to be alone ; he is una- 
ble, through the constitution of his nature, to sepa- 
rate his own well being from the being of those 
with whom he is Hnked in the bands of kindred or 
affection ; and he who has felt the agony of even a 
temporary separation of those ties, may appreciate, 
in some degree, the sufferings of the epicurean 
whose brother or whose child was gone down 
without hope to the tomb, and was hid, as he sup- 
posed, from his eyes for ever! 

No more, indeed, is necessary than to read the 
complaints of impatient grief which Quintilian has 
left behind him, to be sensible how vainly such 
philosophy boasted of triumphing over the terrors 
of the grave, when, in truth, they had doae no 
more than cover it with blacker darkness, and when 

* "Debilem facito manu, debilcm pede, coxa ; lubricos quate 
dentes, vita dum supcrest, bene est ; banc mihi, vel acutam, si 
das, sustineo crucem." — Senec. Epist. ci. 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 327 

even they who themselves disbeheved in a hfe to 
come, could not refrain from pronouncing those 
barbarians " happy in their error," who regarded 
death as the passage to another state of existence.* 
Let us see, then, how these more fortunate rea- 
soners of paganism had succeeded in estabhshing 
the faith of a life after death, and how far this faith, 
as held by them, was calculated to rob death of its 
sting. 

They began by reasoning justly, that, as we are 
composed of two distinct natures, we have no rea- 
son to suspect that the accidents to which the one 
is liable have any necessary tendency to affect the 
other. They observed that the soul can do many 
things (such as reasoning, comparing, compound- 
ing, and remembering) without the body's help ; 
and concluded that the soul might continue to do 
all this, though the body were returned to its ori- 
ginal element. They even went farther, and sug- 
gested the possibility that she might, under such 
circumstances, exercise these powers in still greater 
perfection than, from the presence and pressure of 
the body, she is now permitted to do. And as 
reason told them that whatever now is, must con- 
tinue to be till destroyed, so till some agent were 
found competent to destroy the soul, the soul (they 
were induced to apprehend) might exist for ever in 
a separate state of happiness or of misery, or might 
be united, at the pleasure of their gods, to a suc- 
cessive series of bodies. And this opinion they 

'^ Felices errore sou, &c. 



328 SERMON XVL 

conceived to be remarkably strengthened and sup- 
ported both by the usual phenomena of dreamg, 
and by the supposed fact that the manes of the 
dead had, on certain occasions, been seen and 
heard by the living ; a notion which, whether true 
or false, has been common in all ages and countries, 
and which the epicureans themselves were so far 
from regarding as unfounded, that they had re- 
course to the wildest theories to reconcile it with 
their own opinions.* But when this possibility, or, 
call it if you will, this probability, was admitted by 
the minds of men, and it is plain that this is, pretty 
nearly, the utmost length to which the unassisted 
powers of human reasoit could proceed, the result 
obtained was, surely, far from sufficient to support 
the trembling spirit in its passage through the valley 
of the shadow of death, or to chase from the gate 
of the grave the horrors which surround it. 

The first hypothesis of a separate and spiritual 
existence of the soul, when deprived of those hopes 
and aspirations which gild the Christian Paradise, 
revolves itself into httle more than a continued but 
useless consciousness of existence, a continued, 
and, it may be, a murmuring recollection of the 
pains and pleasures of a life which is to return no 
more, the obscure residence, the stridulous cry, the 
shadowy limbs, and shivering appetite for warm 
blood, which, in the estimate of Homer, made up 
the comfortless elysium of departed hcroes.t The 

' Plato Phacdo. Cicero Tusc. Qua3st. I. &c. 
+ Odys. xi. xxiv. 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 329 

second, which Lucan considered the more com- 
fortable creed of those warhke Gothic tribes who 
had derived this faith with many other circum- 
stances of belief and practice from their ancestors 
in the north of India, held out to the dying man no 
more than a return to the miseries of Hfe and death 
in another body. And, as the interruption of con- 
sciousness was almost a necessary accompaniment 
of transmigration, it was in fact, nothing else than 
to say, that while his present being was- absolutely 
drawing to a close, another being, of which he was 
to have no knowledge, and in which he could feel 
no interest, was to arise from his essence, hke a 
plant from the seed of its predecesssor. Or, though 
the hope might be indulged, that where all was 
unknown, some better things were in store for the 
virtuous, such a chance of possible gain would but 
little avail to comfort us under the present and cer- 
tain loss of hfe and friendship and enjoyment ! 

It is true, nevertheless, that the majority of the 
heathen world, and more especially, perhaps, among 
those who were least entangled in the meshes of 
philosophy, both had and have some better ex- 
pectations than these, derived from those tradi- 
tions which had descended from the earliest men 
from the times when our species conversed with 
angels and with God, and learned from the highest 
authority the secrets of that unseen world, to which 
the visible world is but a passage and a vestibule. 
And how much more satisfactory these traditions 
were to the mind than the hardiest and most plau- 

VOL. I. 2 TJ 



330 SERMON XVI. 

sible conjectures of natural reason, may be infer- 
red from the eagerness with which Socrates is said 
to have recurred to them in that hour when the 
soul of man is most anxious in her search for com- 
fort. How gladly does that wise and good man 
take refuge from the difficulties of abstract reason- 
ing in those ancient legends (of the word fxu^og in 
its primitive application, our " fable" is too harsh 
a rendering) in those legends of Egyptian and Chal- 
dean mystics, which speak of the soul as expiating 
her crimes in the waves of Phlegethon, or enjoying 
the reward of her virtues in the society of departed 
sages. And smely it may be said that whoever 
reads the Phaedo with attention, will not hesitate 
to admit that faith is an instinct natural to man, or 
refuse to bless that wisdom and goodness which 
have supplied this appetite, since the truths of 
Christianity were made known, with a food so pure, 
so inexhaustible, so satisfactory 1 

But though much of truth and much more of 
striking poetry may be found, beyond a doubt, in 
the heathen traditions of a life beyond the grave, 
the misfortune was that these traditions came down 
to the civihzed nations of antiquity in a state so 
encumbered with fable, where truth and falsehood 
were so intimately blended, and where the false- 
hood was of a kind so repugnant to reason and 
probability, that it was difficult, if not absolutely 
impossible, to determine what circumstances, if any 
circumstances at all, might be selected and adhered 
to from the mass of general error. The Grecian 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 331 

judges of the dead, the river, the dog, and the ferry- 
man of hell, are notions which the principal hea- 
then writers hardly ever mention without scorn. 
And, unhappily, though their scorn was in these 
instances justly excited, yet, when these were 
taken away, very little remained on which the faith 
of a dying man might fasten, except the general 
probabihty that the soul did not perish with the 
body, and that the separation of the two would be 
the commencement of a new and distinct existence 
to the former. But, when thus much was believed, 
and this, as we have seen, was nearly all of which 
the best instructed heathen was persuaded, the idea 
of death must still have been extremely formidable, 
nor to be contemplated without an anxiety which 
the wisest and boldest of their number were little 
able to overcome or dissemble. 

The man who felt the approach of death was de- 
parting for a strange and distant country, where his 
reception might depeiid on causes over which he 
had no control, where all was dark, where all was 
eternal, and where all was, therefore, terrible. 
" Poor fluttering lively spirit," said the philosopher 
Hadrian, on his death, " poor guest and comrade 
of the body! to what unknown regions wilt thou 
wing thy way, pale, naked, and trembling .^" — 
" Whether to live or die be most profitable," were 
the words of a far better and wiser man than the 
Roman Emperor; "whether my lot, oh men of 
Athens, be in this respect better than yours, there 



332 SERMON XVI, 

is no one who knoweth, save God."^ But how dif- 
ferent were the dismal anxiety of Hadrian, and the 
doubtful hope of Socrates, from the sure and cer- 
tain faith of that great apostle, to whom, " to die 
was gain," and who exclaimed in triumphant anti- 
cipation of his approaching martyrdom, " I have 
fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I 
have kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid up for 
me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the 
righteous Judge, shall give me at that day."t 

One nation, indeed, there was of the world ante- 
rior to the Gospel, who had received or retained, by 
whatever means and from whatever antiquity, the 
doctrine of a future life and a most righteous judg- 
ment after death, undebased by those preposterous 
superstitions which encumbered the behef and dis- 
gusted the common sense of the more enlightened 
heathen inquirers. That, already, in the days of 
our Lord on earth, the great majority of the Israel- 
ites entertained these expectations, is a fact appa- 
rent to the most careless reader of the New Testa- 
ment. And though the well known paradox of that 
mighty mind,J whose wildest speculations are not 
to be treated with levity, has countenanced the opi- 
nion that this faith was, among the Jews, of more 
recent introduction than the time of Moses ; yet 
there are at present few points more generally 
agreed on by learned men, that, even from the ear- 

" Socrates, in Plato's Apology. f 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8. 

t Bishop Warburton. 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 333 

Jiest days of the law and the patriarchs, the doc- 
trine of the Israehtes was, in this respect, the same 
with our own, and that they acknowledged no less 
than the Christian Church, that death was but the 
beginning of another Kfe, and that after death came 
judgment. 

Still, however, there were some circumstances in 
their situation which prevented this truth from pro- 
ducing to its full extent that blessed effect on the 
minds of the house of Israel, which, after his con- 
version to Christianity, the apostle of the Gentiles 
experienced, and of which he speaks, in the words 
of the text, as of privileges not belonging to himself 
alone, but as the common heritage of all those who 
bear the name of Christian. 

What those circumstances were, and in what 
manner the Gospel has delivered us from their 
might, I must reserve to a future sermon. But in 
the mean time it is my duty most earnestly to call 
on you to consider that the greater and more glo- 
rious the lights and the privileges of the Gospel 
the more intense the danger from which it sets us 
free, and the disquietude the more painful, the 
greater is our obligation, and the necessity the 
stronger to avail ourselves of the dehverance held 
out by God's own hand, and in our lives no less 
than with our hps to manifest our fervent grati- 
tude. Simply to live for ever is a privilege of a 
very doubtful character ; it is a privilege which the 
spiritual enemies of the Almighty have retained in 
their wildest defection from His rule, and it is a 



334 SERMON XVI. 

privilege which the monarch of all may continue 
or decree in His wrath as well as in His mercy. 
But to be happily and gloriously immortal is a 
blessing which, if the Gospel be true, the Son of 
God has purchased for us by His blood ; it is a 
blessing which His bounty has set within the reach 
of every one of us ; by Him the tree of life has 
again been planted in the world, and it remains for 
each of us to determine whether its fruit is worth 
our gathering. But let us hasten to make our option, 
for the shades of evening are waxing long, and the 
hours of exertion are melting fast into twilight. To 
die is the lot of all men, but let us so live that to 
die may be our gain and our immortality ! 



SERMON XVII. 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 

[Preached before the University of Oxford, May 3, 1818 ; at Lin- 
coln's Inn, May 5, 1822; and at Madras, Feb. 26, 1826.] 



Phil. i. 21. 
To die is gain. 



In my late sermon on this text it was my endea- 
vour to explain the causes which made, to the 
great majority of the heathen world, the expecta- 
tion of death a source of almost unmingled disqui- 
etude and pain ; and I shortly noticed, also, that 
the Jews, though trained under a holier law, and 
embued with a more excellent erudition ; though 
taught from the lessons of their fathers, and the 
implied but sufficient testimony of their ancient 
and divine oracles, to crown the temples of their 
deceased friends with flowers in honour of th(3 gar- 
den of Eden, and to bless, in their service for the 
dead, that God who kept their bones unbroken till 
the hour of resurrection; that the Jews, in spite of 
all the presumptions and traditions which they could 
plead for a life beyond the grave, were not enabled 
to derive from those traditions a hope so sure, so 



336 SERMON XVII. 

certain, and so full of blessedness as that which 
St. Paul experienced, and which the humblest 
Christian, if he be not wanting to himself, may ex- 
perience through Jesus Christ our Lord ! And the 
inferiority of their hope to ours may appear from 
the following considerations. 

It was, in the first place, less absolutely certain 
and undeniable. It was, indeed, the hereditary be- 
lief of their tribes since the time of those patri- 
archs who had fallen asleep in hope, and who, by 
the testimony which they bore to themselves that 
they were pilgrims in the present world, evinced 
that they expected to find a better and more en- 
during home hereafter. It was implied in very 
many striking passages of Scripture, as where Job 
declares his hope of seeing God after worms had 
destroyed his body, and where God Himself, the 
God of the living, laid claim to the faith and ho- 
mage of those who had long since fallen asleep in 
the tomb of Macpelah. 

But the revelation was implied, not explicit ; the 
doctrine was disputed in its essential circumstances, 
by the majority of the nations around them, and it 
was denied circumstantially and altogether by a 
clamorous and powerful party among themselves. 
And when we compare, in practice and on subjects 
where the mind is little disposed to acquiesce in 
uncertainties, the effect produced on ourselves by 
a speculative and impugned theory in comparison 
with that fiilness of faith which follows an authen- 
tic experiment, we may be well convinced that 



THE FEAk OF DEATH. 33? 

the actual return of the Son of God from the grave 
has done more, by itself to prove the immortality 
of our nature, than all the law and all the prophets, 
and all the traditions of the fathers from Abraham 
down to Gamaliel, had effected for the confirma- 
tion of the house of Judah. 

But this was by no means the only circumstance 
of disquietude. For, secondly, the faith of the or- 
thodox Jew consisted, as we have seen, not only in 
the persuasion that his soul was immortal, and 
that his body should revive, but in the expectation 
of a most just judgment after death, in which the 
eternal condition of men was to be decided accord- 
ing to their works done in the body. But, though 
this hope would have been, indeed, a heavenly 
ctoifort under the terrors of the grave, could they 
have been sure that their own Uves were such as 
God approves, and that, in the integrity of their 
hearts, they might pass boldly before His judgment 
seat, yet would a restless conscience seldom fail 
to whisper the dying man that his actions had 
been far other than well-pleasing to his Judge, and 
that the power, the justice, the purity of that Judge 
were to him nothing else than so many additional 
arguments of dismay and danger. The same God^ 
he could not help remembering, who hath pro- 
mised to " keep mercy for thousands" beyond their 
deserts, hath declared, on the other hand, that He 
will " by no means clear the guilty ;"* and that 

••' Exod. xxxiv. 7. 
VOL. 1. 2 X 



338 SERMON XVII. 

neither the heathen nor the generahty of the JeWiJ 
had any sufficient ground to hope that their imper- 
fect obedience would be accepted by God, and in- 
troduce them to Elysium or Paradise. 

I say they had no sufficient grounds for hope, 
though I am far from forgetting the expiatory offer- 
ings for sin which their law commanded, or the 
connexion and correspondence which their Divine 
Lawgiver designed between those offerings of vi- 
carious blood and the Christian truth of the one 
great atonement. But as the obvious weakness and 
inefficiency of such sacrifices were sufficient to de- 
ter the most sanguine from relying with perfect 
confidence on the outward ceremony alone, so the 
event of which that ceremony was the type, and 
on whose retrospective blessedness its inward gra^e 
depended, as being future, was obscure even to the 
wisest and most enlightened Israelite, and could, 
therefore, afford no present definite consolation 
even to those who were, in the fulness of time, to 
be saved by it. 

Nor need we wonder, therefore, at that custom 
(so strongly expressive of diffidence in themselves 
and their own exertions) which began at a very 
early period of the synagogue, of pleading the 
merits and relying on the intercession of their more 
favoured or less criminal ancestors ; nor that, be- 
fore this practice arose among them, and in spite 
of whatever fallacious comfort they might derive 
from it, the death even of holy men was, under the 
old dispensation, regarded as a misfortune rather 



THK FEAR OP DEATH. 339 

than a blessing, nor that the dying hopes of the 
more modern Jew have been mingled with very 
painful doubt and anxiety. 

" Dost thou weep, Hght of the world ? Dost thou 
tremble, pillar of Israel ?" said the disciples of one 
of their most celebrated rabbins, to their expiring 
master. " Alas," was his reply, " if I were going 
before an earthly king, though the worst which he 
could inflict would be worldly loss or suffering, I 
should still have cause for fear. And shall I not 
weep and tremble exceedingly when I am going 
before the King of kings, who, if He is angry with 
me, may cast me into the hell of fire, and whose 
wrath is for ever and ever ?" 

Since, then, the doctrines of the heathen and 
the Israelites were alike unavailing to take away 
the sting of death, and enlighten the countenance 
of him who was about to descend into darkness, 
we must arrive at two conclusions. First, that 
the wants of our nature and our reasonable fears 
require some better comfort than that religious 
system of a future state of rewards and punish- 
ments to which the religion of nature is limited, 
and to which some Christian sects would persuade 
lis to limit Christianity. Secondly, that the opera- 
tion of some such better principle is implied in those 
hopes which the apostle entertained, and of which 
he speaks not as belonging to himself alone, but 
as the common heritage, unless their own negli- 
gence intervene, of all those who bear the name of 
Christians. 



340 SERMON XVII. 

It is plain, however, that these hopes must rest 
on a different foundation than the blameless virtues 
of their entertainer. Even of St. Paul himself it 
could not be said that he had, through life, so 
served God that he had no reason to fear appear- 
ing before Him. In his youth that great apostle 
had been a hinderer and slanderer of the Gospel, 
and the curse of innocent blood sate heavy on the 
accomplice in Stephen's murder. True it is that 
he had repented. True it is that the latter and 
greater portion of his life had been occupied and 
expended in the service of his God and his fellow- 
creatures. But where shall we find in the book of 
God's word, or on what principle of natural reason 
or justice can we ground the expectation that any 
services, however great, can be offered as an atone- 
ment for acts of an opposite character, or as over- 
balancing in an account between man and his 
Maker, the scale of man's transgressions ? 

If, indeed, the laws of God, so far as they res- 
pect our conduct, were, as in the instance of 
our first parents, a series of prohibitions only, 
if no actions were commanded us to do^ and if 
the whole law could be kept by leaving certain 
actions undone ; if this, which is, to a great ex- 
tent, the case with every human code, were the 
case with the whole duty of man, as revealed to 
us by reason and by Scripture; if God had not 
commanded us to relieve the poor ; if He had not 
commanded us to praise Him or pray to Him, or 
if He had set down a limit to our dutv in theso 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 341 

particulars so definite as to be distinguished by 
each of us, and so low as to be surpassed by our 
more earnest endeavours, it might then, indeed, be 
urged, " If I have done some things which were 
displeasing to Thee, I have done others which 
Thou dehghtest to behold !" There might be 
then, a merit in one part of our lives, which might 
atone for a demerit elsewhere, and our obedience 
beyond what was commanded might carry us to 
Heaven, in spite of a certain proportion of those 
faults against which the severest edge of God's 
anger is sharpened. 

It is thus that we ourselves, when we allow the 
zeal and activity of one under our authority to in- 
duce us to pardon certain instances of misconduct, 
shall always find that this activity and zeal has been 
something more than the mere bond and letter of 
his duty. For doing simply what we ordered, we 
neither praise nor pardon him ; but it is because 
he has done something more, or done it in a better 
or more diligent manner than we expected or ab- 
solutely required of him. 

But, where God and man are concerned, the latter 
must, even in his best endeavours, be an unprofita- 
ble servant, not only because there is no one vir- 
tuous or pious action which is not commanded, but 
because, in all these actions, the law of holiness is 
too perfect and subhme to be even attained, much 
less transcended by our best exertions. For 
every active duty, no less than every species of 
abstinence, a necessity is laid on us, a necessity 



342 SERMON XVIl. 

enforced by the most awful threats, and woe 
to us if we fall short of the service which God 
requires at our hands! Thus if a man plead, 
*' It is true that I have dishonoured God's name 
but according to my means I have done good to 
my fellow-creatures. It is true that I have been 
secretly avaricious or intemperate, but by the de- 
cencies of my outward conduct I have set a good 
example to all around me ;" the answer might be, 
" Therefore thou shalt be punished as a blasphemer 
only, not as having been also uncharitable. There- 
fore, when thy selfish and sensual habits have con- 
signed thee to the place of torment, those flames 
shall not be superadded which the openly impious 
shall experience !" I do not deny, what is plain 
from many passages of Scripture, that the good 
deeds of the Christian which spring from faith, are 
mercifully accepted as offerings well pleasing to 
the Most High, and are the means, and the only 
means, whereby we treasure up to ourselves, 
through Christ an exceeding weight of future 
glory. But w^e cannot too steadily bear in mind 
that (considered by themselves and according to 
the principles of natural religion) what we call good 
deeds are only so many instances in which we 
have not done evil, and that they can, therefore, 
by themselves have no possible efficacy in remov- 
ing God's wrath from those actions in which we 
have positively offended Him. 

" But the mercy of God," it may be urged, 
" may incHne the scale on the side of Heaven, and 



THE FEAR OP DEATH. 343 

instead of being extreme to mark what is done 
amiss, may pass lightly over our provocations."-— 
Alas ! even our knowledge of God's mercy, if ab- 
stractedly considered and placed,as we have hitherto 
professed to place it, on the basis of natural religion, 
is by no means sufficient to relieve us from the into- 
lerable dread of death and judgment. God may, 
indeed, and God will (our natural religion is able to 
teach us this,) God will make His mercy to triumph 
over His justice, and dispense even to the worst of 
His creatures, a cup of wrath far milder than their 
offences call for. But God's justice is, no less than 
His mercy, an essential attribute of His nature, and 
though the last may triumph over the other, it can- 
not extinguish it, or destroy that anger against sin. 
which is a necessary perfection of the All-righte- 
ous. He may judge us mercifully ; He may con- 
demn us mercifully ; and yet we may be judged, and 
yet we may be condemned ; and that condemna- 
tion (though tempered, doubtless, by every fitting 
forbearance), must still be enough to confirm the 
menaces of Him who cannot He, and whose threats 
against sin, in their least and mildest acceptation, 
cannot be heard or read or recollected without 
great fear and trembling. As God is merciful. He 
will deal as gently with His creatures as the order 
of His creation, and the dignity of His laws will 
admit of: but as God is true. He will condenm to 
unquenchable fire all them that set at nought His 
authority: and as God is the equal judge of angels 
and of men. He will not clear the guilt of these 



344 8EKMON XVll. 

last, lest the elder and worthier creatures should 
tax hhn with a partial sentence ! 

" But the sinner may, with true contrition, re- 
pent him of the evil which he hath done, and cast 
himself with bitter tears on the fatherly kindness of 
his God 1" Great, indeed, and blessed are the power 
and comfort of that repentance whereby a Chris- 
tian is brought to the mercy-seat of Christ, and to 
that expiation which the poor in spirit are taught 
to look for in His name ! But who shall tell us, 
who could tell the heathen, and on what grounds 
does the follower of natural rehgion beheve, that 
repentance, considered by itself, though it may 
doubtless prevent our swelling the load of our guilt, 
can operate to atone for sins past^ and to the dis- 
charge of debts already contracted ? Do we find 
in common hfe that the natural consequences of 
by-gone actions can be remedied by after sorrow ? 
Can we pay a debt the more easily because we re- 
gret our extravagance ? If a man flings himself 
from a tower, can he arrest his fall by changing his 
mind half way ? It is true that, in earthly courts 
of justice, not only the general good character of a 
criminal, but his apparent contrition and sorrow 
are, in some cases, fitly allowed to plead in his fa- 
vour. But there are two grounds on which they 
are thus admitted among men, neither of which, so 
lar as we are informed, can apply to the judgments 
of the Almighty. 

First. Here it is only for a first oftence, or an 
uflencc, at least, which has not been often repeated' 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 345 

that the contrition of the culprit is ordinarily allowed 
to plead. But the sinner who trembles before the 
tribunal of God is not so favourably situated, inas^ 
much as it is no single act, no rare recurrence of 
transgression which will then be laid to his charge, 
and for which he must in that dreadful day make 
answer. The sins of a whole life, the backslidings 
of many years, resolutions often broken, tempta- 
tions presumptuously sought after, opportunities of 
serving God presumptuously neglected, the world 
and its forbidden pleasures pursued with systema- 
tic greediness, the promises of Heaven rejected with 
systematic indifference or aversion ; a picture hke 
this is what the life of the worldly man too gene^ 
rally offers ; and do we hope that a few tears for the 
folly of our choice will release us fi:om a choice 
made against due warning, and persisted in with a 
perfect knowledge of the consequences ? Nor is 
this the only difference ; for. Secondly, an earthly 
court of justice is, in its essence and spirit, correc- 
tional far more than penal. It is the duty of the 
ruler to reclaim, if possible, the offender, before he 
proceeds to make his exemplary destruction an in- 
strument of good to others. " Tollere nocentem" 
is the last resort of the law ; " meliorem reddere" 
either is or ought to be its first endeavour. When, 
therefore, a criminal is to be sentenced, it may. 
under certain circumstances, be most fitting to 
suffer his tears to plead in his behalf, and to allow 
him a chance of repairing his past offence by a di- 
ligent discharge of all his future duties. But the 

VOL. I. 2 Y 



346 SERMON XViL 

last great sentence of God in the day of His wrath: 
so far as that is made known to us, is not for the 
amendment but the exemplary chastisement of the 
sinner. It may admonish others in the higher ranks 
of creation, but, so far as its immediate object is 
concerned, it is penal, and penal only. All the cor- 
rective dispensations of God will have been already, 
and in this preceding life, expended. In this life 
He will have already borne long with us, and warned 
and chastened us ; in this life a sufficient term of 
probation will have been given to every man, and, 
the time being past in which a change of conduct 
might have been accepted, we have no good rea- 
son to believe that in the grave there can be par- 
don ! 

" But the repentance of which we speak may have 

already, in this life, taken place; the sinner may have 

already forsaken his evil ways, and have so profited 

by the corrective discipline of God as that His final 

vengeance may be unnecessary." And, surely, if a 

man could render such an account of even his latter 

years as that they should show no stain of guilt, and 

that no single instance should occur in which, by 

broken vows, and violated principles, and repeated 

relapses, he had mocked the patience of the Lord, it 

may be that such a one might lay down his head 

in hope, rejoicing that he had effected a timely peace 

with his Maker. But what is this to us whose lives 

liave been a tissue of unsteady service to God, and 

irresolute rebellion against Him; whose hearts. 

even in their hohest moods, have been divided be- 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. ^ 347 

tween Him and His enemies ; whose prayers have 
been stained with sin, and whose very repentance 
has been to be repented of? Such a repentance as 
we can offer, the Christian, hke the rest of the 
world, beheves indeed to be absolutely necessary 
to salvation ; but something more than repentance 
is necessary, both in the eyes of Christianity and of 
natural reason, to make our repentance itself avail- 
ing with our Judge as a cause or a condition of 
pardon ! What is, then, this necessary something ? 
What else shall we find, what more shall we look 
for, what else or what more wac desired or expected 
by St. Paul, than that expiation for sin which the an- 
cients sought for in those blood offerings which were 
shadows of things to come, but which the Christian 
recognises in the sacrifice and meritorious suffer- 
ings of Him whose death hath paid the penalty of 
fallen nature ; whose abundance hath made up for 
our innumerable defects, and whose sinless virtue 
hath sanctified our imperfect penitence ? 

To men bought with a ransom so precious ; to 
men protected by such an Intercessor; to men 
thus more than reconciled with God, identified 
with His nature, and adopted by Him; to men 
thus circumstanced, what is there in death which 
can be accounted terrible ? Is it terrible to ex- 
change a world of temptation and frailty for that 
quiet resting place where the wicked one ceases 
from troubhn^, and where the struggles which 
rend our mortal bosoms shall be at peace for ever- 
more ? Is it terrible to leave the violence or weak- 



348 >SERMON XVII. 

ness of mankind for the society of angels and just 
men made perfect, and the vision of om- glorified 
Lord ? Is it terrible to forsake a world of toil and 
penury to pluck the fruit of the tree of hfe, and to 
rest from our labours in the green shades of Para- 
dise;* or does not the time seem long which must 
pass before we shall " stand in our lot at the end 
of the days,"t and crowned with gold, and with 
triumphal branches in our hands, bear our part in 
that great Hallelujah wherein the angels shall 
exult to join ? 

There are those, indeed, among men to whom 
death is, even now, most terrible ! He is terrible 
to those who, with so great and gracious encourage- 
ment to repentance, have preferred to remain in the 
prison house of their sins rather than to seek, by the 
appointed means, the glorious liberty of God's chil- 
dren ! He is terrible to those who have contented 
themselves with an idle and fruitless recognition of 
Christ's power, without an attempt or a desire to 
show forth their gratitude in their lives ; who have 
cried, " Lord, Lord," without giving themselves up 
to His service ; who have rested on the letter of 
His promises, without attending to their spirit, and 
have boasted themselves the chosen of the Lord. 

* Quas neque concutiunt venti, nee nubila nimbis 
Adspergunt, neque nix acri concreta pruina 
Cana cadens violat, semper sine nubibus aether 
Integer, et large diffuso lumine ridet ? 

Lucretius, iii. 10. 

y Dan. xii. 13. 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 349 

forgetting by what means their election was to be 
rendered sure. He is terrible, lastly, to those who 
have leaned on the broken reed of human merit, or 
repentance ; who with the brightness of the Sun 
of Righteousness before them, have turned back to 
the twilight of natural religion ; who, professing to 
look forward to a future life without end, have ac- 
quiesced in grounds of hope, than which the Jew 
possessed far better, and by which the heathen, in 
his grossest ignorance, was still too wise to be 
comforted ! But to the sincere and humble be- 
liever in the atonement made by Christ, to him whose 
faith has worked by love, and who has earnestly 
panted after holiness ; who has sought for grace in 
the ordinances of the Most High, and shown forth 
the grace received by a progressive though imper- 
fect amendment, to him death is not terrible ; he 
rests on a protection which no created thing can 
render vain, and the garment, which is his passport 
to the marriage banquet of the Son, is itself a 
pledge of that Son's free grace and favour. 

Of the many direct, and the still more numerous 
implied assertions of Christ's atonement, which are 
contained in Scripture, the time forbids me to take 
notice. It is enough for my present purpose to 
have shown that this doctrine is not only consistent 
with, but absolutely necessary to, the fears and 
feelings of our nature, and that, consequently, those 
sects by whom it is explained away into I know not 
what apparatus of allegory and mysticism, are but 



350 SERMON XVII. 

little entitled to the name which they assume of 
rational and philosophical Christians. 

I cannot, however, dismiss my audience without 
entreating them to recollect that this illustrious dis- 
play of God's mercy in the humiliation and sacrifice 
of His Son ; these glorious promises which He has 
made, and this earnest of future blessedness and 
perfection which He has afforded us in the gift of 
His Holy Spirit, are not merely a splendid pageant 
in which we are not personally and individually 
concerned : nor are they to act in our favour like 
a charm, without our own application of them to 
ourselves, and our earnest and consistent use of 
the means of safety which they offer. 

" To die is gain ;" but it is gain to them only to 
whom it has been " Christ to live ;" and by how 
much the greater salvation has been tendered, and 
by how much the easier the terms have been on 
which it was tendered, so much the blacker confu- 
sion must our faces one day gather, if our obstinacy 
in sin has abused the long-suffering of the Lord, 
and we have presumed on the merits of His blood 
to disgrace the name of His religion ! Those are 
ill taught in the language of Scripture who suppose 
that salvation is not offered to us, but forced on us; 
who forget that they are the children of God who 
only are heirs with Christ of a happy immortality; 
and that the promise is not that we shall be made 
the sons of God, but that " power shall be given 
ns" to become so.* 

' St. John i. V2. 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 351 

Let then the promises of the Most High produce 
in our mind the effects for which they were in- 
tended ; the effect of encouraging and exciting us 
to a holy energy in His cause, and to a soldierly 
perseverance in our spiritual warfare. But let us 
recollect, in this our struggle, that the arms with 
which we fight are not our own ; that our most ac- 
ceptable services are clogged with sin, and our 
firmest allegiance tainted with defection ; and that 
in our seeming strength, as well as in our greatest 
weakness, our reliance can there only be grounded 
whither the natural fears and gracious aspirations 
of the heart alike mount up for refuge, the cross 
of that victorious Saviour who hath tamed the 
strength of sin, and made the gate of death the 
entrance to immortahty ! 



SERMON XVIIL 



THE ATONEMENT. 

[Preached before the University of Oxford, 1818, and at 
Cuddalore, 1826.] 



Romans vi. 3, 4. 

Know ye tvot that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus 
Christ, were baptized into His death ? Therefore we are 
buried with Him by baptism into death, that, like as Christ 
was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even 
so we also should walk in newness of life. 

St. Paul in these words, and in the chapter from 
which they are taken, is providing against an abuse 
which (even in the earhest and golden age of Chris- 
tianity) some mistaken Christians had begun to 
engraft on its doctrines, and which had been urged, 
with some show of plausibihty, as an objection to 
those doctrines, by the enemies of the newrehgion 
He had in the preceding chapter explained, in a 
clear and striking manner, the general fact on which 
are grounded the most important peculiarities of 
our creed ; that our justification is not purchased 
by any virtues or merits of our own, but that it is 
the free gift of the Most High, through Jesus Christ 
His Son. And he had illustrated tthe greatness of 



THE ATONEMENT. ' 353 

the mercy which God, for His Son's sake, had 
shown to the world, by comparing it with the de- 
gree of severity which, for Adam's sake, the same 
God had formerly thought fit to exercise towards 
us. " The sentence," St. Paul had argued, " which, 
in the case of Adam, was passed for one man's sin 
on the race of mankind in general, was no more, 
after all, than (even if such a sentence had not been 
passed in the first instance) the subsequent crimes 
of each of Adam's descendants might in his own 
person have justly called for. But, in the case of 
Christ, a benefit was conferred on the whole race of 
mankind for the sake of one Man's obedience, to 
which the whole race of mankind were so far from 
having any meritorious claim, that all men and 
every man had been committing actions which me- 
rited the direct contrary. So that though death, in 
point of fact, reigned over the world in conse- 
quence of Adam's sin, not in consequence of youf 
sin or of mine, yet were the sins of each of us and 
of each of Adam's descendants so great as to have 
called down such a sentence on our heads, if that 
sentence had not been previously passed on us ; 
while, on the other hand, the gift of eternal hfe, 
which is offered to us all in consequence of Christ's 
merits, is offered, not merely without regard to the 
deserts of each particular man, but absolutely in 
spite of them. *' Where sin" then " abounded^ 
grace did much more abound." The mercy of God 
was more powerful to save us from death than our 
offences were to seal and confirm the doom of death 
VOL. i. 2 z 



354 SERMeN XVIII. 

which had been passed against us ; and not only the 
natural habihty to death which we inherited from 
our first parents, but those additional claims which 
death had acquired on us in consequence of our 
personal transgressions, were cancelled and done 
away " through righteousness unto eternal life, by 
Jesus Christ our Lord." Here, however, it was, 
that the abuse of which I have spoken occurred, 
as well as the objection which, in consequence of 
that abuse, was advanced against the Christian 
doctrine. 

" If," it was argued, " the blessing of everlasting 
hfe is offered to us through Christ, not only with- 
out regard to our merits, but actually in spite of 
our sins, what necessity, what obligation have we 
to be virtuous ! If, do what good works we may, 
we can do nothing to merit Heaven, then, verily, 
we shall have purified our hearts in vain, and vainly 
washed our hands in innocency ! If, do what sins 
we please, the blood of Christ and the grace which 
He has purchased for us are sufficient to render us 
acceptable in the sight of God, why then do we 
deny ourselves those pleasures to which our nature is 
inclined : why crush those passions which gnaw, like 
the Spartan fox, the bosom which confines them, 
but of which the wildest and most profligate indul- 
gence is atoned for by the common Saviour of all ? 
Does not, according to St. Paul's own statement, 
the greatness of our undeserving enhance the splen- 
dour of the mercy shown us ? Let us, then, give 
this glory to the Most High ! By making ourselves 



TMM ATONEMENT. 355 

more vile, let us render His condescension the more 
wonderful ! Let us sin that grace may abound." 

It is hard, indeed, to beheve that tenets so con- 
trary to the tenor and temper of the Gospel of 
Christ, so repugnant to the common sense of man- 
kind, and to all the reasonable fears and instinctive 
feelings of our better nature, can ever have been, 
seriously and in simphcity, taught or believed by 
even the weakest and worst instructed Christian. 
However some good men, through an indiscreet 
devotion to one single part of the Christian scheme, 
have been led to dwell too long and too exclusively 
on the promises and privileges of the Gospel, to 
the neglect of its menaces and duties ; however, 
through an erroneous estimation of the nature of 
Divine Grace, and the manner in which that grace 
is accorded to us, they have unhappily weakened 
the motives of moral exertion ; I can hardly con- 
ceive that there has ever been a conscientious 
follower of Christ who, knowingly and systemati- 
cally, has upheld the doctrine of antinomianism. 
To such doctrines the sermon of Christ on the 
mount. His every discourse. His every action. His 
every miracle, no less than every page in the re- 
maining works of His earliest friends and followers, 
are too decidedly hostile to admit of discussion or 
hesitation. And, with some necessary allowance 
for the warmth and bitterness of controversy, and 
for that habit, in which controversialists have too 
much indulged, of imputing to an antagonist, as 
articles of faith and practice, those odious conse- 



356 SERMON XVIIf. 

quences which that antagonist disclaims, we have^ 
thank God, no evidence before us of any numerous 
Christian sect who have not maintained the neces- 
sity of hohness, either as a concurrent cause, or, 
at least, as an unfailing preliminary to our final sal- 
vation through Christ Jesus. 

There were, notwithstanding, in the lifetime of 
the apostles, and there still may be found, two dif- 
ferent descriptions of men who thus, to their own 
ruin, and the shipwreck of many souls besides their 
own, pervert the meaning of the Gospel. The first 
are a base and sensual tribe, who having sold 
themselves to work iniquity with greediness, are 
glad to catch, like drowning men, at straws and 
shadows, and to avail themselves of any pretence, 
how weak and futile soever to justify or excuse 
their continuance in practices of which their own 
consciences, and the written word of God, and the 
natural religion of mankind bear witness that " the 
end of such things is death." It is something, for 
a person thus unhappily circumstanced, to conceal 
for a moment and by the merest sophistry from 
his own eyes the ruin to which he is tending. It is 
something to escape the indignant pity of his fellow- 
creatures, by making others believe that he is satis- 
fied with his own prospects, and consistent with his 
own principles, while, in truth, his morning thoughts 
are all of trouble and dismay, and his nightly 
dreams are foretastes of torments. It is something 
I fear, too often, of fiendish gratification to draw 
others into the same pit from which he is himself 



THE ATONEMENT, 357 

unable to return ; by his pernicious reasonings to 
serve the cause to which he has devoted his hfe, 
and to comfort himself over his own destruction by 
multiplying, like Pharaoh in Ezekiel,* the amount 
of his associates in misery. It was thus that anti- 
nomianism appears to have first manifested itself 
among the early gnostics and in the licentiousChurch 
of Corinth, and it is hence, I am persuaded, that it 
toII be generally found to spring wherever it occurs 
among the outward professors of Christianity. 

The second, however, and as I conceive by far the 
larger party, is made up of those who perceive, as 
plainly as we ourselves can perceive, the absurdity 
and wickedness of such a system, who are fully sen- 
sible that the All Holy God is of purer eyes than 
with pleasure to behold iniquity ; and that the All 
Just and All Wise can never be supposed to sanction 
the breach of those laws which He has written in 
the hearts of his rational creatures ; which He has 
developed in every page of the inspired and authen- 
tic records of His will; which He has enforced by 
so tremendous threats and by such an awful dis- 
play of wonder and miracle. But this very impiety 
and absurdity they make the ground- work of a 
charge, either against Christianity in general, or 
against the particular doctrine of Christ's atone- 
ment, while they contend that a tenet on which 
such consequences are chargeable cannot possibly 
have proceeded from God. 

It is to this effect that Celsus has compared the 
*Ezek. xxxii. 31. 



358 SERMON XVIII. 

moral qualifications required from the candidates 
for admission to the heathen mysteries, with the 
gracious invitations held out in the Gospel to the 
most wretched and atrocious sinners ; and it has 
to this effect, also, been urged by a freethinker of 
the last century, that " if Christ be the propitiation 
for all sin, the most wicked Christian is secure, in- 
asmuch as God cannot in justice lay claim to any 
further satisfaction for his offences."* 

And certainly, if no way could be found to escape 
from such a conclusion ; if the doctrine, as it has 
been stated, stood alone and without explanation 
in Scripture; if nothing else were contained in 
the system of Christian behefbut absolute and un- 
conditional forgiveness of sins through the blood 
of Christ, and the offer of eternal life without any 
reference to our virtuous conduct ; I, for one, would 
not hesitate to admit either that the Christian re- 
ligion did not come from God, or that mankind had 
not yet succeeded in discovering the purport of 
some of the most striking and, apparently, some of 
the clearest passages in the New Testament. 

But, God be praised 1 there is no need to aban- 
don either our common faith or this essential and 
most comfortable part of it. The abominable con- 
sequences to which I have referred belong not to 
Christianity itself, but to an imperfect and distorted 
view of it. The doctrine on which they are charged 
is one part only of a vast chain of which no single 

* Celsus ap. Orig. 1. .3. sect. .59. p. 147. Chubb, Posthumous 
Works, p. 250. (quoted by Leland.) 



THE ATONEMENT. 369 

link can bear to be separated from its fellows, but 
of which the Hnks united are the bond of earth and 
Heaven, the threefold cord of God's wisdom, and 
justice, and mercy ! 

It is, accordingly, not as giving up or weakening 
the doctrine itself, but as bringing forward other 
doctrines with which it is inseparably connected, 
that St. Paul repels the force of these objections, 
and evinces that we may be saved by grace alone, 
and yet the reason for good works shall not only 
continue unimpaired, but acquire, from this very 
doctrine, an additional force and energy. And this 
he does by an appeal to the terms themselves in 
which beUevers lay claim to the promise of Christ, 
and to the obligations which those terms imply to 
a future continuance in holiness. 

" Shall we continue in sin, that grace may 
abound ? God forbid," are his words. " How shall 
we that are dead to sin live any longer therein ? 
Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized 
into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death ? 
Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into 
death, that, hke as Christ was raised up from the 
dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also 
should walk in newness of life." — " Knowing this," 
he proceeds, " that our old man is crucified with 
Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that 
henceforth we should not serve sin." For he that 
is dead is freed from sin." The force and beauty 
of this argument will appear from a very short 
(examination of its particulars. 



300 :SERM0N XVIII. 

It is, ill the first place, abundantly certain that 
(whatever the advantages may be which the merits 
and death of our Lord have obtained for mankind 
from His Father) they are the same with those 
which every Christian both seeks and hopes in an 
especial manner to obtain in the ceremony of bap- 
tism, that form by which he publicly enters into the 
fellowship of Christ's religion, and solemnly lays 
claim, according to the solemn promise of his Lord, 
to all the privileges of Christ's new covenant of grace 
and pardon. Whatever we seek after in His name, 
whatever we obtain through His merits, we seek 
and obtain by a due use of the ordinance of baptism ! 

But how is it, and under what hmitations that we 
are taught, on that occasion, to seek for and expect 
the free gifts of pardon and grace ? What is the 
conventional meaning of the ceremony ? St. Paul 
has told us that it is an image of our death and 
burial ; that our immersion, or aspersion (for the 
import of either is the same) is to signify our inter- 
ment, or that " jactus pulveris," which in every age 
and country has been regarded as a virtual inter- 
ment ; insomuch that, the form being complied with, 
we are said to be born again, and to appear, in the 
world to which we return, as if we were already 
inhabitants of another state of existence. " We 
are buried with Christ by baptism into death, that, 
like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the 
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in 
newness of life." 

What then, let me ask. is the effect of that 



THE DECREES OF GOD. 177 

them than a fearful looking for of judgment to 
come, and the gleams of that unquenchable fire to 
which they, every day, were drawing nearer ! 

My brethren, there are those even now, and God 
grant that their number may not be greater than 
many of us imagine ; there are those even now 
whom preaching cannot move, whom friendly coun- 
sel cannot amend, whom example and experience 
have no power to alter, who are beyond the reach of 
other men's prayers, and whose hearts refuse even, 
in their hours of greatest terror, to utter a prayer 
for themselves. Some of these have outlived the 
pleasures of life, yet perish in its sins simply be- 
cause they cannot forsake them; they are not 
altogether insensible to their danger, but they can- 
not stop, though hell gapes wide before them ; like 
an ox to the slaughter they pass on, or a beast to 
the snare, the heartless, hopeless, joyless slaves of 
sin, and the heirs of torment unspeakable ! And 
these men had once, like those Jews, their day of 
visitation; these men had once the power given 
them, if they had seized on and improved it to the 
best advantage, of becoming through Christ the 
children of God, and with Him the heirs of everlast- 
ing glory ! What might they then have been ? 
What are they now ? What must they soon be- 
come ? 

Oh ye who yet feel the comfortable whispers of 
God's Spirit in your souls, whose consciences yet 
warn you when you fall into sin, and to whom the 
power is yet allowed, when you have the inclination, 

VOL. I. 2 A 



178 SERMON VIIL 

to apply your souls to prayer and the study of the 
Scriptures, deal not, I beseech you, with the Holy 
Ghost as Felix dealt with Paul, saying, " Go thy 
ways now, when I have a more convenient season 
I will send for thee."* The Spirit of God will not 
always strive with men ; He will not come exactly 
when we call him, when we have often already sent 
Him away ; and if ye neglect the opportunities of 
effectual salvation which are now presented, the 
time may soon come in which " ye shall desire to 
see one of these days of the Son of Man, and shall 
not see it."t Improve, then, to the utmost of your 
ability, the grace already vouchsafed to you ,• it is 
not your own ; it may be withdrawn at any time ; 
and it will be taken away from that unprofitable 
servant who hides in a napkin the bounty of his 
Heavenly Master. 

Nor, if an additional motive could be required to 
the timely availing ourselves of God's spiritual aid, 
can a stronger be conceived than that which is the 
last conclusion which follows from the words of my 
text, namely, that the deadness and bhndness to all 
spiritual impressions of which I am speaking, is ge- 
nerally the forerunner of some signal vengeance of 
God, and almost always great in proportion to the 
degree of spiritual advantages which the sufferer 
has formerly enjoyed and neglected. The blind- 
ness which happened to Israel, the grossness of 
their hearts, and the dullness of their ears were 

■' Acts xxiv. 25. t St. Luke xvii. 32. 



THE DECREES OF GOD. 179 

such as to us appear almost beyond belief. And 
were not their spiritual advantages, the works which 
were done among them, the warnings given them, 
the revelations communicated to them, at one time 
altogether as remarkable ? And what nation hath 
the earth ever seen whose destruction was so signal 
and attended with so much misery as theirs ? 

Oh may we so shun their obstinacy as that we 
may not be given over to their blindness, but that 
we may know, in this our day, the things which 
belong unto our peace before they are hid from our 
eyes, before the evil days come and the years in 
which we shall say we have iio pleasure in them,* 
and before that dreadful day in which we may cry 
to the God of mercy in vain for pardon and suc- 
cour, when the sleep of death and the senseless 
doze of unbehef and hcentiousness shall be rent in 
pieces, once for all, by the voice of the archangel 
and the trumpet of God's judgment I 

*Eccles xii. 1. 



SERMON IX. 



THE EXTENSION OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 

[For the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Preached 
at Shrewsbury, 1821.] 



Daniel xii. 3. 
And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of thefirma- 
ment, and they that turn^many to righteousness as the stars 
for ever and ever. 

These words are found in one of the most striking 
prophecies on record of the time and manner of 
the Messiah's coming ; and they should seem to 
point out to us very clearly the two-fold duty which 
that advent laid on mankind, namely, that of pro- 
fiting in their own persons by the rehgious know- 
ledge thus laid within their reach, and that of com- 
municating to others, less favourably circumstanced, 
the hght in which all are equally interested. " They,'' 
said the angel to the prophet, " that be wise," that 
is, who are in their own persons wise unto salva- 
tion, " shall shine " in the last day " as the bright- 
ness of the firmament," and they who make others 
wise in the same manner, who " turn many to right- 
eousness," and to a saving and purifying know- 
ledge of the Most High, shall shine forth as " the 
stars for ever and ever." 



THE EXTENSION OF CHRIST S KINGDOM. 181 

The first of these duties, that of labouring in 
our own persons to acquire the true wisdom of 
which the prophet is speaking, is a duty of such 
obvious necessity in itself, and so strongly enforced 
in many passages of Scripture, that, with a Chris- 
tian audience, few arguments are required to de- 
monstrate its absolute necessity. We cannot come 
to Christ without believing in His name. We can- 
not believe on Him without knowing Him. We 
cannot know Him as He is, and as He should be 
known, without appreciating highly the dignity of 
His nature, the wisdom of His laws, and all which 
He has done and suffered for us. And, though an 
outward confession of these illustrious truths is by 
no means inconsistent with much general inatten- 
tion to the doctrines and duties of rehgion, yet they 
are greatly mistaken who expect to be able either 
to know God satisfactorily, or to believe in Him 
sincerely, or, truly and heartily and practically, to 
love Him with that degree of affection which He 
demands from us, without a diligent and frequent 
study of His works and His attributes as described 
in the sacred volume ; without a fi-equent approach 
to Him and converse with Him through the chan- 
nels of prayer and meditation ; and without a dili- 
gent use of those appointed means of grace which 
chiefly have power to kindle in the heart those 
affections to which, and to which only, the God of 
love and wisdom is accustomed to reveal Himself 
as a Creator, a Redeemer, and a Sanctifier. " He 
that hath my commandments and keepeth them. 



182 SERMON IX. 

he it is that loveth me ; and he that loveth me shall 
be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and 
will manifest myself unto him."* 

It is apparent, then, that for the adequate dis- 
charge of the first-mentioned duty, some greater 
pains are necessary than are comprised in an ac- 
quisition of the first rudiments of Christian know- 
ledge, and that both diligence and devotion are 
required if we would really be found among that 
number to whom the praise of true knowledge be- 
longs, or whose wisdom, in the great day of the 
Messiah, is to shine forth in the brightness of the 
firmament. Nor is the caution superfluous even 
to the wisest and best informed of those who have 
assembled on the present occasion with the bene- 
volent design of enlightening the darkness of their 
fellow-creatures, that it behoves them, while they 
care for others, to bestow some thought on them- 
selves ; to recollect that, if they neglect the care 
of their own souls, the attention which they pay to 
the souls of others can do nothing else than make 
their folly or hypocrisy the more conspicuous, and 
that it is in vain to unfold the Bible to their bre- 
thren while it remains in their own closets a sealed 
and neglected volume. 

But enough has been said (and as much as the 
immediate occasion of my addressing you will ad- 
mit of) on this evident and primary duty. It re- 
mains that I should examine into the extent and 

"St.Johnxiv. 21. 



THE EXTENSION OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 183 

obligations of that second and less obvious branch 
of the Christian character, for the display of which 
so brilliant a reward is promised in the latter part 
of the verse which has been read to you. If of 
them who are, themselves, wise unto salvation it 
is foretold, that they shall " shine as the brightness 
of the firmament," to them who apply that wisdom 
to the advantage of their fellow-creatures a more 
illustrious blessedness is assigned, their glory is to 
be that of those heavenly bodies to which the fir- 
mament owes its lustre, " and they that turn many 
to righteousness" are to be " as the stars for ever 
and ever." 

The duty of assisting to the best of our power, 
and in conformity to the station where God has 
placed us, in the dispersion of ignorance, in the 
propagation of truth, and the extension of the 
knowledge and power of that glorious Gospel, 
which was the latest legacy of the Messiah to all the 
nations of the world ; this duty I have called a less 
obvious branch of the Christian character, because 
it has been too customary among Christians to re- 
gard it as the appropriate duty of a particular body 
of men, the inheritors of a distinct office and com- 
mission, and on whose labours no unauthorized per- 
son could intrude without usurpation, while the 
burden was laid on them alone to " go into ail the 
world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.*" 
And, so far as the pubhc ministry of the Gospel ex- 

* St. Mark, xvi. 15. 



184 SERMON IX. 

tends this distinction is undoubtedly founded in rea- 
son and Scripture. To preach, in ordinary cases, the 
private Christian can pretend no more authority 
than for administering the Sacraments ; and both 
the one and the other are the appropriate functions 
of those men only and their successors, on whom 
this burden was laid and to whom this authority 
was given when the Lord, after His resurrection, 
led forth His Apostles as far as Bethany, and when, 
breathing on them, " He said unto them, " receive 
ye the Holy Ghost ;" " as my Father hath sent me, 
even so send I you." 

But that would be a very confined and inade- 
quate notion indeed of the duty to which I refer, 
which should apprehend it to be exclusively and 
sufficiently fulfilled by the mere work (however di- 
ligently performed) of oral preaching and adminis- 
tration of Baptism and the Eucharist, or which 
should keep out of sight the innumerable and most 
efficacious instruments of prayer, of example, of 
authority, of private remonstrance, of public edu- 
cation, of succours affi)rded to the temporal wants 
of the preachers, and their poorer disciples, and of 
the many other ways of helping in the Lord's great 
battle, which are strictly within the province of 
those who themselves may not preach the Gospel, 
and without which the labours of the most indefa- 
tigable preacher would avail but little to the exten- 
sion and furtherance of God's kingdom. And when 

*St. John, XX. 23.21. 



THE ATONEMEiNT. 369 

we should have been bound to perform, even had 
Christ never died for us, in common gratitude for 
the daily and ordinary blessings of life and light, 
and sunshine ; in common prudence, as the most 
effectual means of passing through the present 
world with comfort and safety ; in common fear, as 
creatures already liable to God's wrath, but desir- 
ous to conciliate, by all possible means, the anger 
of our dreadful Monarch. An immense and addi- 
tional blessing is bestowed, and no return is stipu- 
lated but the continuance of our former service I 
Surely such a gift is, in the strictest sense of the 
words, of free grace, though we allow that its final 
accomplishment is contingent on our good beha- 
viour. 

And this may be still further illustrated by the 
fact, that as we are commanded to do good as well 
as to abstain from transgression, it is plain that our 
best works are only so many instances in which we 
have not done evil, and that every neglect of an 
active duty is the perpetration of an actual sin / ^_ 
against our Maker. But it would be too much to W 
say that any man contributes to an act of grace, \ 

when, in truth, the highest praise to which he can 
lay claim is, that he does nothing to cancel that 
act or prevent its becoming effectual. Yet this is 
the only manner in which the best actions or the 
most virtuous lives can be said to forward or se- 
cure our salvation; and it follows, that we may be 
bound, as we most undoubtedly are under the se- 
verest penalties, to keep the laws of God, and yet 

VOL. I. 3 B 



r 



370 SERMON XVIIl. 

our salvation maybe accorded on grounds entirely 
distinct from human merit. 

But, further, the consistency of grace and duty 
is also apparent from the manner in which alone 
we are enabled to discharge the latter. The opera- 
tion of grace is not confined to our free justifica- 
tion at first and to our merciful acceptance after- 
wards ; the conversion by which we first yield our 
assent to God's merciful offers (whether this con- 
version takes place in baptism itself, or when the 
beneficial effects of baptism are first made percep- 
tible in our spiritual nature), this conversion is, it- 
self, an effect of that Spirit which alone has power 
to attract our attention to Heavenly things ; while, 
secondly, our perseverance in the calling once re- 
ceived would be impossible to us without help from 
above ; and lastly, it is of God's mercy alone that 
our perseverance and our services, imperfect as 
they are, can obtain either reward or pardon. 

Our salvation then is of grace alone, inasmuch 
as our first admission into the covenant of peace is 
without any previous probation of virtue, and, in the 
case of adult converts, in spite of many previous sins. 
It is of grace, inasmuch as the services which are 
afterwards required from us have no aptitude in 
themselves to call down reward from the Most 
High ; and are, on the other hand, exclusively cal- 
culated to promote our own happiness and the hap- 
piness of those around us. It is of grace, since to 
the performance of these very services the strength 
is furnished from above, by Him who not only calls 



THE ATONEMENT. 371 

on us to hope, but bestows on us the spiritual gifts 
by which that hope is sealed and perfected. It is 
of free grace, above all, and as it respects the con- 
summation of our Christian warfare, because we 
are not only first freely called and afterwards 
freely strengthened to perform the obHgations of 
our calling ; but, even where we have neglected 
and transgressed our duty, the repentance and the 
faith which were, at first, our only passports to 
Christianity, are still suffered to attend us and plead 
for us, and by the same merits of the Redeemer 
through which we were justified and sanctified, we 
are accepted at length and glorified. 

It is true that the grace thus given is not (so far 
as I can discern in the word of truth) in any in- 
stance described as irresistible. We may refuse to 
be ct)nverted ; we may resist the sanctifying disci- 
pline of the Holy Ghost ; we may turn back in our 
Christian course, and render vain, and worse than 
vain, our Christian privileges ; but a gift is not the 
less a gift because the object of our benevolence 
may refiase to avail himself of it : and He who has 
bestowed on us " the power of becoming the sons 
of God," (I quote the very terms in which St. John 
describes the nature of the Christian dispensation,) 
may be asserted, in the utmost strictness and pro- 
priety of language, to be the efficient and only me- 
ritorious cause of our adoption, our sanctification^ 
and our final glory. 

Our justification, then, whether past or future, 
whether in this world or in the world to come, our 



3T2 SERMON XVIII. 

justification is of God : but it is for ourselves to de- 
termine whether we will seek for and secure it by 
the means which God has appointed. And to satisfy 
ourselves that we are thus securing it, that we are 
really such in our practice as in our principles we 
profess to be, and that, believing on Christ, we, with 
our whole hearts, follow after the blessing which He 
has brought for us, I know no better course than a 
frequent mental recurrence to the ceremony and 
engagements of our baptism, a frequent and un- 
flinching comparison of our lives with the obliga- 
tions which that ceremony laid on us. 

Are we really so far able to resist the allurements 
of vice as that, if not constantly, we are, at leasts 
habitually above their influence ? Are we really, in 
the general tenor of our lives, living to God, and 
in contradiction to that corrupt and fleshly principle 
which our friends in our baptism besought the Al- 
mighty to subdue in us f Then are we dead to sin 
when we no longer feel any pleasure in it ; then, 
though our emancipation may not yet be perfect, 
and though in our regenerate nature some earthly 
frailties may be found (as even the disembodied 
spirit was supposed in platonic mythology to hnger 
for a time round the place of its body's sepulchre), 
yet if these taints are in spite of ourselves; if these 
returns to earth are waxing shorter and less fre- 
quent ; if our sanctification, though imperfect, is 
progressive ; and if, though the bodily tabernacle 
still weighs us down, our heart and our hope are iri 
Heaven, then may we rejoice with a godly joy ir* 



THE ATONEMENT. 373 

Him who hath thus far helped us : ascribing to 
His grace the advances which we have made, and 
imploring Him to bring to an end the good work 
which He hath begun within us ! 

But if otherwise, blame not those friends who 
prayed for your infancy ; blame not that ordinance 
of God, which was, in itself, most powerful to sanc- 
tify and to save ; blame not the Holy Spirit of God, 
who, even now, as He hath promised, is warring 
in your hearts to deliver you ; but, blame your own 
heedlessness, blame your own self-flattery, blame 
your own obstinacy and hardness in sin, on which 
these prayers, this baptism, this inward and purify- 
ing grace have so long been thrown away ! Con- 
sider how terrible must their prospect be who 
(having been replaced by the free mercy of God 
in the same immortality which Adam forfeited) 
prefer a continuance in the corruptions of their 
mortal nature, to that easy service of the Most 
High, to which He lovingly invites and enables 
them. And fly, while there yet is time, to the altar 
and to the grace of the Redeemer, to renew your 
broken vows, to reclaim your forfeited privileges, 
and to recommence in His might that spiritual Hfe 
of holiness, which death cannot interrupt, nor the 
gates of the grave imprison ; but which shall bear 
us on " from strength to strength," and through 
successive stages of obedience improved, of faith 
confirmed, of hope yet nearer and brighter, to that 
undying happiness whither He hath led the way. 



374 SERMON XVIII. 

who is the guide of our path, the chief of our war- 
fare, the pattern of our Hves, the champion of our 
salvation, our hope, our strength, our crown, and 
our exceeding great reward ! 



SERMON XIX. 

THE ATONEMENT. 
[Preached at Lincoln's Iim, May 1823.1 



CoLoss. iii. 3. 
Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in €hd. 

The image conveyed in these words seems to have 
been a favourite one with St. Paul ; he frequently 
compares the condition and habits of a Christian 
to the state of those spirits who have shaken off 
the chains of moftahty; who have left behind 
them, in their coffins, the desires and anxieties of 
the world, and are now expecting, in the residence 
of departed souls, the return of their Lord, and 
their own resurrection into glory. This illustra- 
tion is remarkably calculated to reconcile the pri- 
vileges with the duties of a Christian; to establish 
our salvation through Christ alone, while it preserves 
inviolate our obligations to personal holiness, to 
exclude our boasting, and to stimulate and encou- 
rage our diligence. 

But the use which I now intend to make of this 
fertile topic is to extract from it still further illus- 
trations of the leading peculiarities of our religion. 



376 SERMON XIX. 

and more particularly of that which is its corner- 
stone and master-key, the vicarious and expiatory 
nature of the Christian sacrifice. 

And, in pursuance of this design, I shall examine 
first, in what sense we may most reasonably under- 
stand those expressions which thus speak of living 
men as if they were deceased already; secondly, 
what peculiar advantage this fictitious and figura- 
tive death can communicate to those of whom it 
is predicated; thirdly, what manner of persons those 
are who are said to partake in the death of Christ; 
and, lastly, what moral and practical consequences 
may be further derived from a comparison which 
is, with St. Paul, so frequent and so favourite. 

In the first place, then, it will hardly have es- 
caped your notice that the death which, in all these 
passages, is predicated of persons yet ahve, is pre- 
dicated of them as a consequence and concomitant 
effect of the death and sufferings of the Messiah. 
We are dead in Him, that is, when He died we died 
also, or were accounted thus to die. It is not said 
merely that He died for our sakes, for our instruction, 
for our example, for the establishment of our faith in 
that doctrine of immortality, which, if He were not 
the first to discover. He was certainly the first to 
demonstrate and render famihar to all mankind 
Though all these beneficial ends, and many besides 
these, were brought to pass by His innocent death 
and meritorious sufferings, yet more than this is 
surely implied in the expression that we are dead 
in Him; nor am I awore of any manner in which 



THE ATONEMENT. 37t 

tiie action or sufFeriDg of one person can thus be 
placed to the account of another, except when 
that first person is the substitute or representative 
of the other. 

It is thus that, in the common affairs of hfe, and 
in the ordinary language of mankind, we are often 
ourselves understood to do or suffer whatever is 
done or endured by another on our behalf, by our 
procurement, or for our advantage. If a li'iend 
pays a debt for us, it is we ourselves who have dis- 
charged it. If a substitute serves for us in the army, 
we ourselves have performed whatever duty the 
military conscription imposed on us ; if our repre- 
sentatives impose a tax, we, that is the whole na- 
tion, are supposed to have consented; and when 
our friends or kindred answer on our behalf in 
baptism, it is ourselves who, by this means, are 
understood to become parties to the privileges and 
engagements of Christianity. If Christ, then, have 
been in any circumstances of His life or death, the 
representative of another, that action or passion^ 
whatever it shall have been, may, in this form of 
speech, be imputed to the person represented; and 
if, on the other hand, we are declared, as in the 
words of my text, to have paid the debt of mor- 
tality when Christ died, it must be that our Lord 
in His agony and his bloody sweat, in His cross, 
His passion, and the rest of those affecting details 
which are famihar to the devout recollection of every 
believer, was the representative and substitute of 
nil those who look, through Him, for salvation. 

VOL. r. 3 c 



378 SERMON XIX, 

And thus, and thus only can we understand 
those other texts of Scripture in which the Son of 
God is represented as made a curse for us, as bear- 
ing our sins, in His body on the tree, as performing 
that for us by His own sacrifice of Himself, which 
the sin-offering of the elder world professed, though 
vainly, to accomplish; expressions, all of them, 
which, by any other method of explanation, are as 
unsatisfactory and as unintelligible as those pas- 
sages, without this clue, would be, which speak of 
living men as virtually and in law deceased, 
through the death of another person. 

It is true that all these expressions are confess- 
edly and highly figurative. But the object of all 
scriptural metaphors, I might say of all meta- 
phorical language, when it occurs in grave and 
serious writings, is to illustrate and render more 
vivid, not to perplex and obscure the subject of 
which it treats. It is the collation of familiar ob- 
jects with objects less known, in order that the one 
may enable us to understand the other; and when 
the effects of Christ's death are described in terms 
taken from the Romnn law of debtor and creditor, 
from the forms of Jewish jurisprudence and the in- 
stitutions of Jewish sacrifice, it is in vain to deny 
that a resemblance must subsist between the objects 
thus brought together. It must follow, then, that 
the death of our Lord was strictly vicarious and 
propitiatory; that He suffered in order that we 
might escape ; and that we all, but for Him, must 
have been liable to tlic same sorrows, or sorrows 



THE ATONEMENT. 3T9 

greater than those which, in His person, satisfied 
the displeasure of an offended Deity. 

Nor will the objections, however plausible, endure 
a calm inquiry, which have been often levelled 
against this cardinal doctrine of our faith, as if it 
were inconsistent v^ith the goodness of the Most 
High to demand an expiation for our sins at all, 
and contrary to His justice to admit the sufferings 
of the innocent as an expiation for the offences of 
the guilty. But these objections may seem, in part, 
to arise from the habit, not uncommon with men, 
of regarding the visible world as the complete cir- 
cle and utmost limit of creation ; and in part, from 
inattention to that analogy which, as I have often 
had occasion to notice, exists and might be expected 
to exist between every part of natural and of re- 
vealed religion ; between the dispensations of God's 
will and wisdom in His ordinary and visible govern- 
ment of the world, and those further discoveries of 
Himself which He has vouchsafed to us through 
His prophets and His Son. 

That God might, if He had so pleased, have for- 
given our iniquities on no other condition than our 
own imperfect repentance; that he might have 
blotted out our sins without any conditions at all ; 
that His mercy and tender love for His creatures, 
separately considered, might naturally be expected 
to incline Him to such unlimited indulgence, are 
positions, certainly, which I am neither prepared 
nor anxious to deny. But that any of God's known 
attributes made it necessary for Him thus to par- 



SSQ SERMON XIX. 

don us ; that no circumstances could have power to 
restrain or quahfy the exercise of that indulgence^ 
is a conclusion at variance with all the little which 
is known of God's relations with His creatures. 
God is not a Father only, He is a Lawgiver, more- 
over, and a King. Nor is it over mankind alone 
that His authority and His care extend, but over a 
universe of sentient and responsible agents, of which, 
it may be, the children of earth are among the 
smallest and most insignificant nations. And that 
justice (which is mercy on a larger scale) may 
effectually forbid or materially qualify the exercise 
of single acts of compassion; that a righteous judge 
may sentence those whom he most pities ; and that 
the fillet of the allegorical Themis is, sometimes, as 
needful to conceal her tears as to prevent her par- 
tialities, there are those among my hearers who 
have been personally and most painfully sensible. 

We know the ancient eastern fable which tells 
us that not only have angels tempted mankind, but 
that mortals have had power to seduce the angelic 
nature. And, to leave such unfounded and over 
curious speculations, it cannot be thought impos- 
sible that the example of our rebellion might have 
been contagious, had not the Almighty and the All- 
wise, while remitting the more fatal consequences 
of sin, thought fit to brand the sin itself with tokens 
of displeasure, and to demand an awful and a pain- 
ful price as the purchase of his forgiveness. 

With still less reason do we object to that dis- 
pensation of blended mercy and justice, which al- 



THE ATONEMENT. 381 

jowed a divine and guiltless Being to put Himself 
in the place of a guilty world ; and to conciliate, 
not only by His obedience, but by His sufferings, 
the favour of the Supreme towards his creatures. 
Those sufferings, it should be remembered, great 
as they were, w^ere neither in their degree, nor in 
their duration, nor in any other respect, than the 
infinite majesty and holiness of the Person who 
submitted to them, equipollent with the load of 
misery and of sin which was, by these means, re- 
moved from the race of mankind and the stained 
and burdened universe. Those sufferings, though 
an ample, were not an excessive price for the 
glories to which they led the way ; for the adora- 
tion and gratitude, the faith and the affection of 
millions on millions of rescued souls ; for the in- 
dulgence of a love immeasurable and inconceivable : 
such a love, (ten thousand fold sublimed beyond 
the loftiest pitch of parental tenderness) as mercy 
unbounded may have felt for the undone, as the 
Creator of all may have experienced towards His 
erring creatures. 

Such vicarious sufferings, lastly, are consistent 
in every circumstance with that general and ac- 
knowledged law of the universe, which has made 
labour and pain the portals to every great and ex- 
alted object, and has rendered it, for the most part, 
impossible for us to benefit others essentially, ex- 
cept at the price of exertion and privation to our- 
selves. Is it a new thing under the sun for men to 
bear one another's burdens ? Is nothing of health. 



;382 SERMON XIX. 

is nothing of repose, is nothing of domestic hap- 
piness reUnquished by those who watch for the 
weal of nations ; who defend by their wisdom, their 
valour, their personal perils and sacrifices, the 
peace of miUions whom they have never known, 
a.nd who know them, if at all, by name only ? The 
friends who sit sadly and silently beside our beds 
while we are labouring under those miseries which 
(it may be) our own sins or indiscretions have 
brought on us, are not they, to no inconsiderable 
extent, the sufferers for our transgressions, and is 
not the chastisement of our recovery upon them, 
and can we be healed save by their sorrows ? 

We remember the beautiful drama of Alcestis ; 
how the young and innocent wife surrendered her- 
self to an untimely grave, that, by her sacrifice, she 
might snatch her husband from his appointed doom, 
and glut the jaws of the grisly phantom which kept 
watch before the gate of Admetus. But, in this 
tale, it is the mythology only which is fabulous. 
In the rest, agnosco fortunam muliehrem^ agnosco 
muliebre ingenium ! I trace in this description the 
character and the frequent fate of that sex which, 
with pain and anxiety, brings us into the world, 
which, with pain and anxiety, watches over our first 
slumbers, which, as we are gradually sinking to our 
latest sleep, supports and cherishes us with more 
than maternal tenderness, which endangers and 
abandons its own youth, its own ease, its own 
health and life, to lengthen the days, and alleviate 
the sufferings of unconscious infancy, of selfish 



THE ATONEMENT. 38^ 

old age, and of querulous and unthankful sick- 



ness I 

Let me not be misapprehended ! I do not mean 
(God forbid I should meditate such blasphemy !) 
I do not mean to compare for a moment, in degree 
or importance,these comparatively trifling instances 
of self-devotion with that love which disrobed 
itself of Deitv, and stooped down to weakness and 
tears and pain and insult and mortal agony, for the 
deliverance of beings so weak and wretched as the 
children of Adam. But this I will maintain (inas- 
much as it is founded on the grandest and best 
known phenomena of the moral and visible crea- 
tion,) that such a deliverance, and so obtained as 
that of man by the celestial Redeemer, differs only 
in degree from the corresponding instances to which 
I have referred as of daily and hourly occurrence ; 
that, in common life, no deliverance was ever 
wrought by one man for another without the exer- 
cise of some virtuous self-denial, the endurance of 
some voluntary suffering ; that the justice of God, - 
in the work of our redemption can only be im- 
pugned on principles inconsistent with natural as 
well as revealed rehgion ; and that the Almighty 
has but acted in conformity with the general scheme 
of His providential government, when He placed 
pain and peril in the road to so great a blessing as 
the restoration of a world ; and when, in designing 
to brmg many sons to glory. He first made the 
Chief and Captain of their salvation perfect through 
suffering. 



384 8ERM0N XlX* 

This doctrine, however, once estabhshed, it is' 
apparent how much of blessed comfort, how much 
of glorious hope, result to us as its necessary con- 
sequences. When our nature sues for pardon at the 
mercy-seat of God, not Avith her own voice, but 
through the pleading of His Son ; when a sacrifice 
is offered for us, not of bulls or goats, but of the 
blood of the eternal covenant, what room can re- 
main for carnal fear, what regret of the mortality 
which we leave behind us ? Nor is it our pardon 
alone which we may look for through the worthi- 
ness of our Advocate. So truly is Christ the repre- 
sentative of those for whom he was born, and for 
whom He died, that not only do His unmerited 
sufferings outweigh our debt of punishment, but his 
meritorious obedience is also reckoned to the ac- 
count of His constituents. He lived as well as died 
for us ; His prayers are ours ; ours are His blame- 
less innocence and purity ; it was our nature which 
fasted with Him in the desert; it was our nature 
which was transfigured in the mount with Him ; it 
was our nature in which, united with His person, 
and in£:eparable from Him for ever, the Almighty 
Father declared himself well pleased ! In Him we 
are the sons of Gcd once more, and the Heaven 
whither He is gone to prepare a place for us, is 
henceforward not only His but our inheritance ! 

How is it then, in the second place, that a Chris- 
tian lays claim to and establishes this virtual union 
with the Messiah I Nay, ratlier, how is it that, in 
tlie aflairs of the present world, when a substitute 



THE ATONEMEN'] . 385 

or representative is found for us, we receive him as 
our substitute, and make ourselves entitled to the 
merit (for in v^orldly no less than in rehgious trans- 
actions, the idea of imputed merit is familiar) to the 
merit, I say, of his exertions ? Surely, by trusting 
in his professions, by pleading His services instead 
of our own, His sufferings instead of those to which 
we ourselves are liable, and by doing all this in the 
confidence that he has really discharged our debt. 
that he has done and suffered whatever was neces- 
sary for, and sufficient to, our welfare. 

And what is this but faith ? What is there in all 
the legal forms to which men recur in similar trans- 
actions, their powers of attorney, their commissions, 
their public choice of representatives, whether for 
the affairs of a village or an empire ; what is there 
in all these but an expression of confidence in the 
individual thus selected, that he can and will, sin- 
cerely and effectually, do for us that which is need- 
ful to be done, and to do which, of ourselves, we 
are unable ? Or is there more than this implied in 
the solemn ceremonies of our religion, in all the 
words which, by the appointment of the Church, 
are employed as expressive of our inward feelings? 
In all alike, we acknowledge Christ as our Advo= 
cate, our Representative, our Preserver ; in all we 
profess to surrender our cause entirely into the 
hands of this our Champion, and submit ourselves, 
our own weakness, our own errors, our own blind- 
ness, to His merits, His strength, His conduct, and 
His wisdom. Our baptism, our eucharist feast, 

VOL. T. 3D 



386 SERMON XIX. 

our daily prayers, and our daily services, alike are 
taught to repose on Him, and are offered up through 
Him to the Almighty as means and symbols where- 
by we plead the merits of His blood as a cause 
why judgment should not be passed against us, and 
reply, in the words of St. Paul and in answer to 
that doom of mortality which attaches to our 
guilty nature, that we are no longer criminals, since 
our punishment is past ; that we are no longer 
debtors, since our debt is paid ; that we are no 
longer mortal, since we are already virtually de^ 
ceased in the person of our substitute ; that we are 
dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God ! 

It is through Christ, then, that we are saved; 
and it is by faith that the merits of Christ are ren- 
dered applicable to our salvation. And it now 
only remains for me to point out in what manner, 
on these two principles, depend all the leading cir» 
cumstances of a Christian's life and feelings. 

It is, in the first place, plain that this view of our 
condition and our prospects must cut up by the 
root all lofty opinions of ourselves, all confidence 
in our own virtues, and all expectation of being 
able, by our own merits, and exertions, to please 
our Judge and pass the gates of Paradise. The 
very act of committing our cause to another im- 
plies a renunciation of all power to help ourselves; 
and it would be worse than folly, while professing 
to rely on what Christ has done and suffered, to 
encumber this authorized and effectual plea with 
considerations so trivial and irrelevant as our own 



THE ATONEMENT. 387 

weak efforts, our own little sacrifices. We know, 
indeed, (so good and gracious is our God), we know 
from Scripture that not even the least of those la- 
bours which proceed from our love for Him and 
for our fellow-creatures, will remain unnoticed or 
unrecompensed in that day when even a cup of 
water bestowed for Christ's sake shall not fail of 
its exceeding great reward. But we know also, 
and it becomes us to bear in mind, that the rewards 
of virtue are matters of favour and mercy, not of 
debt or covenant ; that, do all we may, we must 
still remain unprofitable servants, and that our re- 
demption from death and our entrance into life are 
alike assured to us through the merits of our Re- 
deemer only. 

On the other hand, it is needful to observe, 
though it may possibly have already occurred to 
most of my hearers, that though our good actions 
cannot add to the validity of a pardon which has 
been already obtained for us through the merits of 
another person, yet, doubtless, our evil actions, or 
the neglect of our necessary duties, may detract 
from, may annul, may defeat and overturn the ex- 
ecution of whatever might else have been the 
gracious purposes of God, through Christ con- 
cerning us. There is an infinite difference between 
the power of obtaining a thing for ourselves, and 
the power of preventing another person from ob- 
taining it for us ; and this distinction is then most 
evident when, as in the case of all the promises of 
the Gospel, the very terms of the favour granted 



i^88 SERMOxNl XIX. 

are, in a certain degree, conditional He who 
claims immortality as having already passed 
through a virtual death, must beware how he does 
any thing which can tend to vitiate his plea ; and 
in the very notion of a separation from the body, 
its passions and temptations, the idea is implied of 
an existence intellectual, innocent, pious ; a per- 
ception of Divine things the more vivid as disen- 
cumbered of that material frame by which the 
energies of the soul are now clogged and hebe- 
tated ; and a solemn but not a hopeless expectation 
of that hour when, being clothed anew in a glorious 
and incorruptible body, we shall receive the final 
accomphshment of Christ's work, arid the reward 
of our life-long patience ! 

I cannot now do more than notice the opposition 
of this sentiment of the apostle to that gloomy code 
of false philosophy which degrades the undying 
mind into a property of perishable matter ; which 
transforms the glories of Paradise into the darkness 
of a lengthened slumber ; and which resolves the 
resurrection itself into a reproduction of something 
which shall bear our name. Against such a philoso- 
phy, or such a rehgion, the voice of reason, the feel- 
ings of humanity, the testimony of Scripture, alike 
cry out aloud ; against such dogmas the souls of 
the righteous protest from their tranquil dwelling, 
where St. John beheld them in vision beneath the 
altar .of their Lord; against such the promise of 
Christ to the dying lobber, and the argument by 
which Christ overcame the petulance of the ancient 



THE ATONEMENT. 389 

Sadducees, are alike triumphant. But in that mo- 
ral application of the doctrine with which I now am 
principally concerned, it is apparent that an answer 
is thus supplied to all the principal arguments with 
which the tempter is wont to assail us ; and that, if 
we only act up to our professions, there can be no 
stoicism like that of the Christian. The terrors 
and enticements of the present life can have no 
force to disturb the tranquillity or ensnare the spirit 
of him who is declared to have already paid the 
debt of nature. What power hath an earthly ty- 
rant over the man who has renounced his life, or 
why do we so fondly Hnger in a world which is no 
longer our appropriate residence ? The intensity 
of hope had done that, in our instance, which, in 
the case of the ancients, a pompous philosophy 
attempted in vain. With Heaven before our eyes 
we cannot descend to the allurements of a lower 
region ; with Hell in our recollection the terrors 
of the world are children's play. Let this be our 
answer under every trial of our faith and patience, 
that the motives which our tempters urge might 
certainly be unanswerable to those whose life is in 
the body ; but that on us they fall as idly as buffets 
on the air, inasmuch as we " are dead, and our life 
is hid with Christ!" 

But, " alas," it will be said in reply, " this pre- 
tended death to the world, while the world still 
ranks us in the number of its living inhabitants ; 
this pretended escape from the body while we still 
feel hunger, and cold, and pain, is no more, after 



390 SERMON XIX. 

all, than a mockery of our misfortunes ; inasmuch 
as our freedom is imaginary, while our duties are 
real, and we are by no means empowered to with- 
stand the enticements of our mortal nature by 
these empty boasts of a fictitious and virtual dis 
solution." 

I answer, that the lesson which in these and si- 
milar passages the apostle conveys is sufficiently 
intelligible, as illustrative of those principles by 
which a Christian is to confirm his faith and per- 
form his duty; though the expressions be figura- 
tive, and though our present imperfect condition 
makes the application of the rule, to its full extent, 
impossible. And this, while we remain on earth, 
must be the case with every exalted and heavenly 
principle of action, inasmuch as our utmost eflforts 
can never attain to that purity which alone is well- 
pleasing to God, that rectitude of perception and 
clearness of soul to which our spiritual nature is of 
itself inclined to aspire. 

But that we cannot do all to which these hea- 
venly principles should lead us, is no reason why, 
perceiving their excellence, we should not follow 
them as far as possible : and that much is in our 
power even our own experience will convince us. 
rf we must not actually neglect or destroy the body 
which is regarded as dead, we can, certainly, by 
seJf-command and self-denial, so far overpower its 
mutiny, as that it shall no longer be able to extin- 
guish or defile the spiritual principle within us. If 
we must wait our time before we can reallv take 



THE ATONEMENT. 391 

leave of the world, we may, at least, so fix our at- 
tention on that departure, the time of which is fast 
approaching, as that all which the world can offer or 
threaten shall have little more power to move us 
to evil, than the same inducements possess over 
those disembodied spirits to whose number we are 
shortly to be added. 

Above all, however, since that freedom from 
earthly evil which death confers is conferred by 
death alone; since, while our fleshly tabernacle 
endures we must remain, to a considerable extent, 
under the dominion of sorrow and of sin; since the 
world is, to a Christian, made up of little else than 
afflictions and snares; and since much of which the 
world makes boast as most advantageous, he is 
called on to renounce before he professes Chris- 
tianity, how deeply may we be sensible of the 
truth that our abiding portion is not here; and 
how courageously and how joyfully should faith 
enable us to contemplate the approach of that day 
when all danger and temptation shall be no more, 
and when, not by a figure only, but in the reality 
of repose and blessedness, we shall be " dead, and 
our life be hid with Christ in God !" 

Death, it has been well and eloquently said, is to 
those who view it firmly, no more than a change 
of habitation. Even in this world we may often 
die ; and whosoever finds occasion to tear himself 
from the friends of his earliest love and the scenes 
of his happiest recollections, will have experienced 
«ome of the worst and bitterest pangs by which our 



392 SERMON XIX. 

final dissolution can be accompanied. But it is in 
the power of us all so to fill up the measure of our 
pilgrimage in this world, as that the separation 
which we so much dread, whenever it comes, can 
never be eternal; but our parting with our friends 
may be the prelude to a happier and more endur- 
ing friendship in those regions where love is unal- 
loyed and truth unsuspected, and where we shall 
reap their blessed harvest ! 



THE END. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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